


Beneath Every Layer of Skin

by weareallpuppets



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Body Horror, Drug Use, F/M, Hallucinations, Horror, Incest, M/M, Rape/Non-con References, References to Suicide, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 18:22:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 36,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/600768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weareallpuppets/pseuds/weareallpuppets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“– ou have, <i>twenty-two</i>, new messages: <i>Beep</i>. Bobby—<i>kkzzch</i>—help—<i>chh</i>—Cas is—<i>zzzck</i>. End of Message. You have, <i>twenty</i>-three, new messages: <i>Beep</i>. Bobby—please!—<i>kkzz</i> —Leviath—<i>bzzzzzzzzz</i>. End of Message. You have, <i>twenty-four</i>, new messages: <i>Beep</i>. <i>Tzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzch</i>. End of Message. You have, <i>no</i>, new messages.”</p><p>Bobby pushes the replay button with a trembling hand.</p><p>“You have, <i>no</i>, new messages.” Again. “You have, <i>no</i>, new messages.”</p><p> </p><p><b>(TO THE POINT)</b>: Not quite a Silent Hill AU, but not quite not one. Goes AU mid 7x02, though themes and characters from later on do appear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What a ride this has been. Please feel free to visit this story at lj [here](http://weareallpuppets.livejournal.com/49413.html), and my lovely artist [badbastion](http://badbastion.livejournal.com/)'s art post [here](http://badbastion.livejournal.com/15897.html).

 

    
   
   
[](http://weareallpuppets.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/978/32351)  


 

“Dean,” Sam says wearily, “I think we're lost.”

The elder Winchester rolls his eyes, lips pursed and dramatic down to the square of his shoulders, though there's no comedy to it. “We're not lost.”

They've been on the road too long– all day, and the day before, driving straight through states with barely a stop, on the I-90 most of the way through. There are no lights along this stretch of highway either, wherever they are. The last place they passed through had been some nowhere town, mid Pennsylvania, but Sam's been drifting in and out for at least an hour since then, a soft rock station and the roar of the road soothing him like a lullaby. There's no telling what state they're in. The third car passenger snores loudly, breaking the monotony of the road. He's been sleeping for much longer than Sam, since they passed through Ohio, in an uninterrupted slumber shared only by the dead and the drunk.

Sam squirms in his seat and scratches idly at the v-shaped scab on his palm. His eyelashes try to flutter shut again, lured by the first soft patter of fresh rain on the windshield. Dean swears.

“Where are we then?” Sam says, rubbing his eyes. He tries to stretch his aching legs, but they bump uselessly against the front of the car, a few inches short of properly stretching.

“Pennsylvania,” Dean says.

Sam rocks out of his seat, yet attempting to stretch. “What, still? How long was I out?”

“A while,” Dean says. His eyes are fixed firmly on the road, illuminated by the headlights. Nothing is visible beyond the beams, but for shadows. There is no moon.

“Dean,” Sam mumbles, falling defeated to his seat, “Where in Pennsylvania?”

Dean doesn't say a thing.

“ _Dean_.”

“Alright, alright,” he says, “I may have taken the wrong junction somewhere. So what? We'll hit a town soon enough.” The rain becomes heavy, thudding on the roof like hail. Dean frowns and finally turns on the wipers, their annoying squeak filling the cabin, though the third passenger does not stir. Sam rakes his eyes across the tense line of his brother's shoulders, his worn face barely visible in the reflection of the Impala's lights off the tarmac. Sam's fingers twitch, diverting halfway from their unintended path to turn the dial of the radio ever so slightly louder. He quickly turns away.

“So we're lost.”

A half smile shoots Sam's way, though he's faced the wrong direction to see it. “Shut up, Sammy.”

For a few miles, there's a distinct broken silence. The rain thuds and the wipers squeak. The sleeping passenger snores in time with 'Hotel California' and the engine roars with the proud distinction of all well aged cars. Sam does not fall back to sleep, but he does not acknowledge either of his fellow travelers.

“Something interesting out the window?” Dean asks. The road is becoming rough, jostling them in their seats. The third passenger still does not stir and Sam does not answer.

Another mile, Dean lets loose a particularly loud yawn. Sam sighs.

“Did you check the--” he pauses involuntarily to yawn in response, “-map?”

“Nope,” Dean says simply.

Sam's eyes hesitantly wander over to Dean, catching the purplish bags building beneath his brother's heavy eyes. “Dude, pull over anyway. Wait for morning. Get some sleep. We're all bushed, man- I'm exhausted and exhausted means, you know...” On cue, blood starts to leak from Dean's hairline, collecting in the corners of his eyes like tears.

Dean's lips flutter downwards, fine lines bracketing his mouth's displeasure. He looks ten years older in the half-light. “We'll pull up to some fleabag motel soon. There's always one on roads like these. Last stop for fifty miles, you know.”

The thick layer of blood spreads, painting over the fine dusting of freckles laid against Dean's cheekbones and coating his plush mouth like grotesque lipstick. Sam breathes, closes his eyes, and clutches his hands into trembling fists, nails digging deep into the skin of his palms. When he opens his eyes, the image has faded away and there's fresh blood under his nails.

“No, we should have hit one, like, an hour ago.” He turns back to the window, but can see nothing but the black-green of trees blurring by in the darkness. “Seriously, you're not the least bit suspicious?”

“Damn it, Sam,” Dean says, between clenched teeth. “Of course, I'm suspicious. I am suspicious _all the freakin' time_. But car trips are generally kinda long and boring, okay, and I- I don't know, ask him, alright? His crazy-time directions lead us here.” He jerks a thumb at the sleeping passenger.

Sam follows the accusatory gesture, guilty eyes finally daring to trace the lines of Castiel's face. Everything looks wrong, his hair too long and no longer perfectly tousled, slender torso swimming in one of Sam's old shirts and a pair of Dean's old jeans. He looks breakable in sleep, nothing like an angel of the lord. He badly needs a shave. Sam's eyes linger in silence, until Castiel snores and the ripe scent of alcohol drifts out of the back seat. “Are we thinking it's a trap?”

“I never doubted it was. But it was also the only lead we had to follow.”

“We had other options, Dean.”

“Not really.”

Pain rattles around Sam's skull and he presses his fingers into his temples, trying to stem the oncoming headache. It doesn't do much, except make it worse.

Dean glances over when Sam doesn't retort, preoccupied as he is by the pressure building behind his eyes. “Are you okay?”

“I'm _fine_ , watch the road.”

The soft rock station plays a few more songs, but begins to cut out halfway through 'Bridge Over Troubled Water'. It hums with the telltale static of remote roads for a few miles, before a frustrated Dean turns it off. He rummages around in the space between their seats, looking at the cassettes as he pulls them out one by one.

Sam fights the urge to close his eyes again when Dean pops in their lone Chicago cassette and 'Wishing You Were Here' begins to play. “Here, this should put you right back to sleep. And probably me too.” Dean never had liked the tape.

“Thanks. But pull over soon, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I will.” Dean's eyes connect with Sam's and hold for a few seconds too long.

Sam clears his throat. “Dean, keep your eyes on the-”

The car jolts, dropping substantially, its tire caught in some rut and scraping bottom. Sam's words die in his mouth as he grips the seat desperately.

Broken chunks of the road flash before the Impala's swerving headlights, a large wave of asphalt buckled and rising out of the ground before them, snarled in a way no road should be, as if it were rushing lava suddenly hardened. A deep crevice splits the road down the middle – that's where the Impala's tires end up.

Dean puts all his weight onto the brake, grunting with effort, but the car only squeals wildly, almost flips, and finally crunches head on to a stop against the raised section of road, pitching all three occupants of the car forward. In the second before his nose slams into the dashboard, Sam sees a face illuminated by a flash of headlight, smiling with teeth too sharp and too white shining out of the pitch night. There's the crunch of someone's bone, perhaps his own, shattering glass, and then nothing.

 


	2. I

 

 

[ ](http://weareallpuppets.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/978/32603)

 

He dreams.

[ ](http://weareallpuppets.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/978/32844)

“We'll be back. For you.” The ancient, dripping thing inside their friend had burbled out the words, as if the black blood sludging from its pores was filling up its lungs.

Dean would say only so much, but Sam's imagination was good enough. He'd seen enough people die, seen enough good people become warped. He'd seen a thousand possessions and illusions, and nightmares made of the bones of friends. He'd seen enough of that mess of a man go into the water, blood and black stained hands spread wide, like he was expecting to be baptized by the early morning sunlight. The image of Lucifer had backed off, for the minute, but his joyful laughter still clicked near the back of Sam's skull.

Dean had pulled that sodden overcoat from the water and Sam's voice had gotten lodged in his throat somewhere, a lump he couldn't quite swallow down. The grief of death had broken over Dean's face and for a moment Sam really did believe that the world was nothing but a torture.

“Okay. So, he's gone,” Dean had said, voice phlegm thick. His shoulders square, but too rigid, strung taut as if about to snap. “Dumb son of a bitch.”

Bobby had opened his mouth, a small noise breaking out, a half of a cough, before he closed it again awkwardly. He frowned, his eyebrows drawn, and crossed his arms over himself.

The silence stretched, and Dean gulped, as if waiting for something, anything, to break it, something he could latch onto, and build on, to keep himself upright.

Nothing came.

Dean's mask broke. He had not fallen to his knees, or brought his arms up to shield his face – his shoulders had merely fallen, snapped like a puppet without strings.

Sam swayed, dangerously, leaning back against the corrugated metal fencing, knees weak as he watched his big brother cry. Dean was quiet, not a sound to betray him, but only at first. It was the pent up grief of years, dissolved into heavy-hearted sobs that could only have been made by a man shattered.

Sam watched and held his face so carefully blank. He had no right to cry. He _had_ stabbed Castiel in the back, he reminded himself. He'd practically driven Cas into the water, believing in him only when it was convenient. It was not his grief, no matter how much he might have wished for something _different_.

He did not cry, but he did squeeze his hand so fiercely against the fence that blood oozed from the broken stitches of his mutilated hand, dripping sluggishly from his fingers and down onto the grass. Bobby had covered his eyes, perhaps to spare Dean some small embarrassment or perhaps to scrub away any traces of his own emotions. Sam looked once more to his brother, his chest filled with a hollowing ache at the sight at the hunched, trembling shoulders.

He found himself running. There were no footholds. There was no easy pathway around the reservoir. It was far from the best idea he'd ever had, but he didn't particularly care. Anything was better than listening to the devil jeer at him from the corner of his mind, better than standing stupidly by and just letting life screw them over once again. He heard his brother call out for him from the shore just as he hit the water, heard Bobby curse him and his stupidity.

Icy water hooked its cold claws into his ribs, pulling him down with all the weight of his many layers of clothing, but Sam swam, ignoring the drag of the water and the painful hitching in his chest. The thinking part of his brain finally kicked into action, reassuring him with paranoid clarity that the Leviathans were in the water, _were the water_ , waiting just out of sight in the darkness where they could tear into him at any second. If by some small chance they weren't, if they had moved on to murkier pastures, it didn't change the fact that there simply would be no body to find, but for bloody bits and pieces if the Leviathans had left any scraps of their meal behind. Sam would fail, and he would drown for it.

No, it really was not his best idea.

Sam looked back only once, saw Bobby restraining his brother from the shore, before dark water filled his eyes again and he had to keep swimming, lest his tired body give into the ache of his recently sleepless nights. It took him an age to reach the place where he'd seen Castiel disappear, however small the reservoir might have seemed from the shore. Sam had to take several gulps of air before he could dive.

It wasn't terribly deep, but the water was an impenetrable dark green. Light did not reach the bottom, though reeds – he hoped they were only reeds – and slime filled the water around him, caressing his heavy limbs, inviting him to stay beneath the surface. Sam kept diving, further and further out, expanding his search. In between dives, his brother's hoarse calls rang out from the shoreline, but Sam _needed_ to do this, needed to at least _try_ to do something.

Sam dove again and again, and in each dive the cold water buried itself like needles into his limbs. Little pinpricks of light broke the edges of his vision, his lungs burned, his body ached in every inch, until suddenly, finally, he seized up. His arms couldn't do another stroke. His legs couldn't kick. All the denim, flannel and his heavy boots were dragging him down. It took all of his effort simply to keep his face just above the surface of the water, and though his ears were waterlogged, he could vaguely hear Bobby and Dean's muffled shouting. The morning sun filtered onto his face, warmed it, his eyes drifting nearly closed as the water lapped teasingly at his nostrils. He wanted nothing more than to sink.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of something pale. It floated on the far side of the lake, barely visible behind the trees, drifting pathetic and aimless near the bank where the reservoir splintered off into a river. It couldn't have been in sight from the tiny piece of shore that Bobby and Dean stood on, nor from the opposite bank at all. He gasped, swallowed a mouthful of algae slick water, sputtered weakly, and turned to the shore. He didn't have the voice to call out through the distance, but he flailed his arm in what he'd hoped indicated to follow. Dean and Bobby took off running into the treeline.

Sam gathered up a last burst of energy, propelling himself mindlessly until he hit the opposite shore and crawled up upon it. It was pure stubbornness that brought him to his feet and got him walking towards the figure sprawled near the rocks. He gasped weakly as he walked, doing his best to get his breathing back. It was a body, nothing more, but it was a body they could bury.

Castiel had washed up on the shore, stretched prostrate on the ground and mostly naked, his remaining clothes shredded. His arms were thrown up, clawing at the sand with the rigidness of the dead, as if he were trying to haul himself from the water. Sam gasped desperately for breath, falling to a crouch nearby with his hands close to the exposed skin of Castiel's back, though his fingers merely hovered. He did not dare to touch the body until Dean and Bobby came crashing across the shallow stream, cursing as water filled their boots. Dean's eyes were an angry red against the green of his irises.

“What the hell were you thinking, you dumb son of a-?!” he bit out, teeth tightly set. Dean saw and said nothing more. Bobby's eyes were wide.

They stood and crouched silently, circling Castiel's– Jimmy Novak's – body, rife with indecision. Bobby was the first to say anything, though he spoke hesitantly. “At least we can give the poor, stupid bastard a proper funeral.” Dean stood frozen, muscles tensed. His teeth were clenched tight in a painful grimace that pulled his whole face and made him look far older than he should.

Reluctantly, Sam spoke, looking anywhere but at the lines crossing deeply over his brother's face. “I'll... I'll carry him,” he volunteered, not sure if he had the strength.

Bobby nodded, mouth drawn, and Dean said nothing to combat him, so Sam tentatively touched the cold, glistening skin of Castiel's back. He rolled him over slowly, trying to avoid looking at the slack face and lips streaked with black blood. He looked anyway, finding himself surprised at how peaceful it seemed, despite the long lashes and limp hair plastered against his skin. The ruined shirt ripped under Sam's grasping fingers, falling off in stained strips and exposing his shoulders. The body was lighter than Sam expected. He hooked his arms tightly under Castiel's chest and knees, pulling him close to his own chest.

 

 

[ ](http://weareallpuppets.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/978/33213)

“Wait,” Sam breathes, barely daring. “Wait. He's breathing!”

Dean looked at him with bloodshot, unreadable eyes, then bent over the body in Sam’s arms. “Cas,” Dean said with an edge to his voice. “Castiel, you feathery bastard, is that you in there?” The coat was still gripped tightly in one of his hands, belt dragging limply on the ground. No one would be able to tell that Castiel wasn't dead, not when his skin was so pale, purple blooming around his eyes and fingers.

Sam kept Castiel pressed tightly against his own chest. The slow but steady rise and fall of Castiel's breath meshed with his own, reassuring him that something was still alive in the vessel. Something was still there. Sam cradled Castiel's body and dared to wish.

Castiel, or whatever was left keeping the vessel alive, did not stir. Dean dropped the coat and his hands shot up, gripping Castiel's upper arm. The corpse pale skin began to discolor under the pressure of his fingers. “Come on, Cas. You can't just do this again!” Dean's knuckles turned white.

“Dean, come on, that won't help!” Sam wrenched Castiel away, eyebrows knit.

Dean stilled, took a deep breath, his hands falling to his sides, though Sam could see them shaking. Rather than picking up the overcoat, Dean removed his own jacket, draping it over the practically naked man.

Bobby clapped his hand on Dean's shoulder and Sam hauled Castiel tighter into his arms, preparing for the long trek back around the lake.

“Excuse me?” a small voice from the woods said. Bobby had a knife ready in the blink of an eye, though Dean just looked at the intruder with a look that could kill.

The woman recoiled. Her brown hair fell in wiry waves, framing her face. The beginnings of lines traced her eyes and around her mouth. She was dressed like a hiker. She caught her breath and boldly stepped forward again. “You should come with me.” Her eyes became unfocused, as though she was a thousand miles away. She nodded to herself, biting her lip. “My cabin is near here.”

Bobby's eyebrows flew dangerously close to joining his hairline. “Excuse me, Lady, but we don't know who the hell you _are_.” He didn't lower the knife.

She opened her mouth like a fish, closed it, and her face slid into that far off look again. “Daphne. Daphne Allen is my name.” Her eyes raked over Castiel's limp form. “And he is the one I was told to find here.”

“By who?” Dean asked incredulously.

Daphne shifted her weight, eying all three of them with trepidation. “God.”

Castiel did not wake as they slowly followed Daphne to her cabin, a heavy silence draping over them. Dean and Bobby never lowered their weapons, but Sam didn't have even a spare bit of energy to dedicate to doubting her. True to her word, there was a cabin just down the shore, “a rental” she explained happily as she unlocked the front door with an old fashioned key.

The inside was a wash of pale blue, decorated with off white lace. A cot was all set in the front room, with a new pair of plain white men's sleepwear lying on the sheets. Daphne kindly ripped off the tag, though she seemed a bit too eager to stay behind and watch Sam and Dean slide the unconscious man into them. The pajamas were several sizes too big, and hung off Castiel's frame like drapes. Bobby took Daphne aside to the kitchen and shut the door, where their low voices rose and fell, a dull hum to Sam. He was just so _tired_. The wall clock read noon, which didn't seem possible. Dean, a cheerful mask in place once more, made him lie down on the couch, and before he knew it, he had fallen into a deep and dreamless sleep.

 

 

[ ](http://weareallpuppets.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/978/33377)

Sam awoke some hours later to the whisperings of Lucifer, the cabin room dark and quiet around him. He fought off confusion and panic, nearly falling off the couch in the process, which Lucifer seemed to find hilarious. Sam sat for a few minutes in the silence, broken only by Castiel's weak breathing, and the thud of Lucifer's boots as he paced by the door, smiling patiently. The hallucination's clothes and face were stained with slowly drying blood.

The door to the kitchen swung quietly open and Dean entered with two steaming mugs in hand. Lucifer leered at him as he entered, stained hands flexing. “Mornin', sleepy head,” Dean said with false cheer, bringing him a cup of hot tea with more whiskey than tea in it. Sam could smell it from across the room. “Or night, really. It's like midnight, man.” Dean flipped on the front room light, sparing a glance at the motionless form of Castiel.

“Has he woken up yet?” Sam asked quietly, sitting up and folding his stiff and weary legs.

“Nope. Between the two'a you I think you've slept more than I have in my entire lifetime.” Dean was all charm and smiles, but his grin was stretched too tight, his eyes darting away.

Lucifer smiled, practically giggling. “He can barely look at you,” he said, moving behind Dean and raking his eyes over his back. “What have you done to his poor little heart, Sam?” Sam readjusted his legs restlessly, avoiding the hallucination's cutting grin.

“What about Bobby and- uh, Daphne?”

“Both sleepin'. Bobby's passed out on the kitchen table– I think he had a bit too much tea,” Dean said, smiling and gesturing with his own, half empty cup. “Daphne's in the next room. She's crazy as a bat, but she seems to be legit. Passed all the tests, though hell if I know how to test for _leviathan_. Hasn't tried to kill us though. C'mon,” he said, sitting down beside him on the couch. “Gimme your hand.”

Sam turned and put his injured hand in Dean's. He quietly unwound the dirty bandages and looked over the v-shaped wound on Sam's palm. The skin looked red and puffy, unwell, and Dean frowned at it before feeling Sam's forehead. He kept his hand there, frowned harder, and then poured a bit of his tea over the cut. Sam gasped, but Dean was already winding a fresh strip of gauze around it. Sam kept his mouth firmly shut- Lucifer was making a show of running his hands over Dean's unaware shoulders and down his body. Sam swallowed heavily.

“How long have you been-” Sam choked when Lucifer put a forked tongue in Dean's ear, though he turned it into a cough. “How long have you been up? Have you slept at all?”

Dean gave him a suspicious look. “Are you alright?” he asked, avoiding the question. That meant no.

“Yeah, good,” Sam lied. “Just, still waking up, you know. I feel a bit warm. But it's your turn- take the couch.”

“No dude, I'm fine.” Sam stood and grabbed Dean by the shoulders, firmly making him lie down and take his place.

“I'm not even sleepy,” Dean mumbled. He pillowed his arms behind his head, looking tiredly at his feet hanging over the edge of the couch. “Man, how did you even fit on this thing, let alone sleep on it?”

“By shutting up. Go to sleep, Dean.” Sam's eyes flickered to the image of Lucifer, sitting at the foot of the couch and eying Dean like a bit of meat.

Dean frowned and, for a moment, looked as though he wanted to say something more, but he said nothing, merely rolled over. He buried his face into the cushions of the couch and within minutes his breathing had evened out into the deep sighs of sleep. Sam sat cross-legged on the floor, drinking his whiskey-tea.

“You're terrible at lying, _Sa_ mmy.” Lucifer whispered, stretching out the nickname and making it sound filthy between his blood-smeared teeth. He sat uncomfortably near Dean's sleeping body, fingers tracing the length of his thigh.

Sam turned away and focused on Castiel's sleeping face. The eyes beneath his lids were not moving at all.

Lucifer pouted, then stood and walked around Sam in a slow, stalking circle. “Maaaybe, he should never wake up,” he said, gesturing to Castiel. He tapped at his chin, considering. “Just killing him again is no fun though. No fun at all-- how many times have I ripped him open for you? It's never as satisfying as it was the first time, though I would have done it so much _slower_ if I'd known you were going to pull that stupid stunt and trap us down here.”

Sam ground his teeth, but said nothing.

“And now I've brought him like a present for you, Sam, all unconscious, and so nice to look at. Dean too. Broken for your taking, But you've never even thanked me. Really, how ungrateful. I've shared your headspace Sammy, I know what you want to do my poor hapless little brat of a brother, and your _own_. So, very ungrateful.” Lucifer crossed the floor purposefully, and swiftly clamored on top of Castiel's legs, locking them between his blood stained thighs. Castiel remained as motionless as ever.

“Stop it,” Sam croaked out, weakly clutching his head in his hands.

“That's fine. It's fine really. I'll simply have my fun with them,” the hallucination went on, unfazed. He cupped Castiel's jaw almost gently, until his nails dug in. Thin streams of blood flowed down Castiel's face, dotting the white pillowcase. “I think he'll look better in pieces, don't you agree?” Deep rents appeared on Castiel's fine cheekbones.

“Stop it!” Sam shouted, before clapping a distressed hand over his mouth. Silence greeted him. No one in the cabin seemed to have stirred. Lucifer grinned before he disappeared, his laughter ringing out in his wake.

 

 

[ ](http://weareallpuppets.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/978/33377)

Sam jerked awake again. Soft dawn filtered in through the cabin windows, and the clock read five thirty. He couldn't remember drifting off, only sitting pointlessly awake for several hours, watching Daphne's door and nothing else. His back ached and his legs were asleep, but more importantly, he was looking straight into a pair of wide and panicked blue eyes. Even more importantly than that, the jerking that had woken him had not stopped.

The whole house was shuddering, loose objects bouncing on their shelves.

“Where am I? What the hell is going on?” Castiel said, voice tight and _wrong_. It was gruff, gravely still, but he sounded far too frightened, too– human.

“Jimmy?” Sam asked, heart bouncing around in his chest.

“I-I don't- What the hell is going on?!” whoever occupied Cas’s vessel repeated. His eyes widened in terror and he pressed himself against the wall behind the cot. Something crashed in the kitchen and Dean shot up from the couch, struggling to wake properly and blinking blearily.

“Whu- What's going- _Cas_?”

Jimmy or Cas or whomever stared at them with eyes as big as saucers, scrambling and tipping the cot backwards, ending up whimpering on the floor with the cot as a shield between him and the hunters. He ducked when Bobby entered brandishing a kitchen knife. Bobby was just beginning to swear when the shaking suddenly stopped.

“I'm willing to bet that weren't no earthquake,” Bobby stated, almost bored sounding. “You don't think the Leviathans have found us already?”

Castiel started to hyperventilate, back pressed against the wall.

“Whoa, whoa– We're your friends, okay? We won't hurt you, alright?” Dean put his hands up placatingly, and gestured so Sam and Bobby followed suit.

“Relax, son,” Bobby said, shoving the knife in his belt. None of them moved. Slowly but surely, the cabin fell quiet and Castiel started to breathe a bit more normally. He jumped when Daphne entered, clad in a nightgown and robe.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, her face screwing up with deep emotion. She pushed the flimsy cot aside and dropped to her knees before Castiel, her calloused hands seeking his and gripping them tightly. “Oh, Castiel, it's you.”

“What?” Sam and Dean asked in unison.

Daphne seemed not to hear them, too busy running her hands over a once more panicking Castiel. “All of us thought you were dead – _I_ thought you were dead.”

“Hey, lady- Daphne,” Dean interrupted loudly. “Mind telling me what the hell is going on?”

Daphne looked startled, as if she had neglected to notice anyone else was in the room. “The Winchesters. I should have known. Please don't finish that banishing sigil, Robert. I don't wish to hurt any of you.”

Bobby frowned and hesitantly stopped drawing the sigil on the wall, shoving the knife back in his belt and putting pressure on his bleeding forearm.

“So you're an angel.” Dean said, distrust thick in his voice.

The angel spared them a half a glance and nodded. “I am Inias,” they said. “I apologize for my appearance, but I... What happened to you, Castiel?” Inias asked. Castiel was looking at them with just as much panic as he'd shown everything since he'd awoken, not one trace of recognition evident in his expression. “His Grace is– I recognized the shine of it near the prophet, but it's so very faint... and growing fainter.” Inias's voice was barely audible.

“The prophet? Daphne's a _Prophet_?” Dean asked. “What happened to the last one?”

Inias sighed, irritated. “Heaven was – _is_ in chaos.”

Dean paused for a long moment. “You _lost_ the prophet? And now you're just... riding the new one? Can you even do that?”

The angel frowned. “A prophet can be a vessel, but only higher angels than I are allowed to-- Regardless. My brothers and sisters will not come. There are no archangels left in heaven, and those of us left are always busy. I felt Castiel, and I had to see for myself if he was still alive. You have died too often, brother,” Inias said.

Silence fell. “My name is Castiel?” Castiel finally asked with a forced calm.

The angel's eyes grew wide and wet. “You don't remember?” Inias asked, voice dropping to a low whisper.

Castiel shook his head, his fingers trying to slip away from Inias's loving grasp.

“Nothing? Not that I am your brother?” Inias looked disbelievingly into Castiel's eyes, as if staring into them would make him remember. “The first shore? Your eternal Tuesday?” Castiel shook his head, looking, if possible, even more confused. “Teaching me how to swing my blade? Teaching me...” Dean looked away and Sam wished he could. The scene seemed far too intimate for them to witness, but Sam just could not tear his eyes away.

“What are you talking about?” Castiel whispered the question, shaking below Inias's fingers. “What does any of that _mean_?”

The angel's shoulders slumped, trembled slightly. Sam cleared his throat. “Can we talk to you? Please?” he asked timidly, simultaneously curious and simply unable to watch any longer.

Inias stood, turned on heel, face emotionless. “Of course.” Inias held himself utterly different from Daphne, back set ramrod straight like a true soldier. They seemed to share a short attention span, however. “But answer me first... I can't see into him. It's as though there is nothing inside him. What _happened_ to him?” Inias's eyes narrowed, Daphne's slender hands balled into fists.

“Uh...” said Sam cautiously.

“See, the thing is...” said Dean.

“Damnit,” said Bobby, glaring at the brothers. “He took that... power trip as I'm _sure_ you remember.”

Inias nodded, frowning heavily. “He killed many of our siblings. They were wrong, to try to start the apocalypse again, but he...” The angel trailed off. Castiel whimpered, barely audible.

Bobby waited with his eyebrows raised, only continuing when the angel did not. “Well, the souls he ate didn't exactly agree with him. Started burnin' him up, takin' control. He had a moment of sanity and we helped him get rid of most of 'em, but some, uh, Leviathans, they dug their suckers in and stayed-”

“ _Leviathans_?” Inias interrupted, looking panicked, eyes flickering over Castiel. “They're locked away. In the deepest places even heaven does not dare travel. You– they couldn't have–”

“Hold your horses, let me finish.” Inias hung on Bobby's words. “Purgatory, right? It's not locked up as tight as you thought it was, 'cause that's where he got the souls from. He, Raphael, and Crowley were all trying to sink their teeth into it, but Cas just got there first. You should probably check your security.” Inias gave Bobby a practically withering look. “So, the Leviathans took control, made him go for a swim, went on to better pastures through the water, s'far as we can tell. This idjit,” he jerked a thumb at Sam, who flushed, “jumped in after him and found his body, and the girl you're ridin' came out of the woods, sayin' your _Dad_ told her to find Cas. And that's it.”

“That can't be it.” Inias gasped, arms crossing over Daphne's chest in a surprisingly human gesture.

“Well, I'm tellin' you, that's _it_.”

Inias paced across the room, Daphne's nightgown fluttering around their knees. “Orders from God, the Leviathans, Castiel's survival... This is unprecedented.” Their straight shoulders were tense.

“Yeah, you're telling us,” Sam said. “So can you tell us about the leviathans?”

“I- I have to warn the garrison,” the angel said. “Castiel, I will need you to come with me.”

“No,” Dean said, shortly. “No, no, _no_. Go warn your guys, but leave _him_ here.”

“I might be able to _help_ him,” Inias insisted, voice raising. “Something is wrong with him.”

“Yeah, I know how Heaven _helps_ people,” Dean replied scathingly. You gonna lobotomize him yourself or let your superiors do it?”

“That is not what I want! Listen, Winchesters. I do not have time for this. Castiel, come with me, I will– ” Inias is cut off when Dean rushes across the room and presses a palm into the banishing sigil Bobby had completed as Dean and Inias had argued. Bright, overwhelming light fills the room, Inias shouts with pain, and, when the light fades, is gone.

“Oh, _come on_ ,” Sam said in an exasperated moan. “Dean, we should have at least tried reasoning with him.”

“Since when have we ever been able to reason with them?” Dean countered. “You okay there, Cas?” His tone did not ease in its anger, and Castiel curls in on himself.

Castiel's eyes were bugging out of his head, but he was still conscious, at least. “Where did she go? What did you _do_?” he asked in a small voice.

“Banished 'im. To wherever the hell they go when they're banished.”

“Dean, c'mon, he's freaking out,” Sam said, watching as Casiel stared owlishly around the room.

“What? I'm just bein' honest.”

“Yeah, but don't you think it's a bit much to swallow?”

“Sure, and all the stuff the angel was talking about before _wasn'_ t. You can handle it, right, Cas?”

Castiel looked helplessly at them.

“ _Dean_.”

“ _Sammy_.”

“Shut up,” Bobby said firmly. The boys shut their mouths.

“What are Leviathans?” Castiel had regained some colour, though he still crouched against the wall, looking small in his overlarge pajamas.

“Kid, we don't rightly know ourselves yet,” Bobby sighed, after a minute.

“They're... Monsters,” Sam said, slowly.

Castiel swallowed, then nodded. “Monsters. Fine, right.” He looked down at his lap, face drawn together. He laughed humourlessly. “ _Monsters_. You said- you said you were my friends? But I killed... people. My... siblings. A lot of them it sounds like.” The suspicion on Castiel's face grew by the second.

Sam bit his lip. “You didn't really have a choice.” Dean scoffed below his breath and Sam shot him a scornful look. “You did a lot of good. You saved our lives and saved a lot of others, even if you did... You really don't remember anything?”

Castiel's hands laced together before his mouth. For a long moment, he was silent. “Nothing. There's nothing. Nothing you're saying makes any sense.” Castiel's head dropped and his laced hands cupped over the back of his head.

“Alright, I hate to interrupt the soul searching,” Bobby said, eying Castiel warily, “but what are we going to do now?”

“Maybe we should wait call the angel back, so we can get some answers?” Sam asked tentatively.

“ _Angels, haha_ ,” muttered Castiel to himself, looking pale as he stood and used the wall to brace himself.

“Yeah, no. We're goin' and we're goin' now, before he can get back with all his dick buddies.” Dean was already heading towards the front door.

“I'm staying.” All three hunters looked at Castiel with wide eyes.

“C'mon,” Dean replied, “You don't know what they're capable of, Cas.”

“No, I obviously don't. But I want answers.”

“Yeah, okay, we'll give you answers, dude. But we have to get out of here first.”

“Go then. I'm staying,” Castiel said firmly, matching Dean's hard gaze.

“Maybe we should stay,” Sam said. His head was pounding.

“Shut up,” Dean replied with enough viciousness that Sam closed his mouth, though he stared at his brother with confusion and apprehension. “Goddamnit, Cas, we need to go.”

“Stop calling me Cas,” Castiel ground out. “I don't even know your name.”

Dean looked like he had been slapped. “Come on, man,” Sam barged in, holding his hands up. “Just trust us on this.”

“Stop it! I'm not your friend and I have no reason to trust any of you,” Castiel said scathingly to Sam. Sam's hands dropped piteously to his sides and Dean's hands balled into fists. Bobby frowned at each of the others in turn. “You expect me to follow you blindly, talking about angels and monsters! And I was murderer, but also your friend? You're all _crazy_. Whoever your friend was is gone, and it sounds like you should be glad.” Dean and Castiel stood face to face, standing tall and gazed equally hard as they matched each other.

Dean took a few hurried strides and punched Castiel squarely in the mouth.

“Dean, no!” Sam called, but Castiel was already falling against the wall with blood on his teeth.

“Damnit boy, what the hell are you doing?” Bobby grabbed Dean's trembling arms, though he pulled out of his hold and stood tall and rod straight. Castiel leaned against the wall, breathing heavy and glaring at Dean with such angry distrust, evident even through the shock on his face.

“Dude, what the hell?” Sam croaked.

Dean turned on his heel. “Come on. Get him and let's _go_.”

“Dean, don't be such an ass. We leave, and we can't learn what the angels know.”

“Good.”

“ _Good_? Dean we have no idea what we're dealing with!”

“Yeah, and what's new about that, Sam? Nothing. But I am _tired_ , sick and goddamn tired, of the goddamn angels! Meddling in our shitty lives and ruining them more than they were already ruined. I'm done with all of them. So let's _go_.”

Sam and Dean met each other's eyes held them, before Sam angrily grabbed Castiel by the arm. Castiel said nothing, allowing himself to be led out, though his hostile stare never left Dean's stalking figure before them. Bobby lingered long enough only to roll his eyes.


	3. II

 

 

 

[ ](http://weareallpuppets.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/978/33636)

  


Castiel did not speak to them. They hiked through the woods, the silence angry and terse around them. Dean walked right by Castiel's coat, lying where it had fallen the day before. Cas didn't spare it a glance. Sam almost passed it by, but thought better of it, picked it up and tucked it quickly and silently into the recesses of his jacket. When they reached the river, Cas went out of his way to avoid the water, stepping carefully on exposed stones to cross, and nearly slipping several times, though he would not take Sam's hand when he offered him help.

It was seven hours home to Sioux Falls. Dean let Bobby drive, but opened all the windows, the roar of the freeway blocking out all other noise and any possible conversation in the uncomfortable atmosphere of the car’s cabin. No one spoke but Bobby, and only to swear at the other drivers on the road. The sun was high in the sky when they hit the last few miles before home and saw a pillar of smoke on the horizon. No one thought on it until they drove down the back street to the junkyard and saw the flashing lights and the scent of smoke filled the air.

Bobby cursed as he jumped out of the car. Dean followed closely behind, though he stopped a few feet away, staring listlessly at the grey smoke. Sam and Castiel sat silently in the car. Some minutes passed before Bobby came stomping back with Sheriff Mills in tow, her smile kind, but sad.

“Afternoon, boys,” she said, clapping hands with a shocked looking Dean. “Don't worry yourself, the house is fine, mostly undamaged. Just a few walls to repaper and a few burnt pieces of furniture. You're lucky the fire didn't reach your alcohol cabinet, Bobby, or they'd never have been able to put it out.” Dean visibly relaxed. Sam carefully scooted out of the Impala, going for a friendly handshake, though Jody pulled him full into her small arms. “Hey, ya big lug.” Curiously, she peered beneath his shoulder at the person left in the car. “Who's that?”

“Their angel,” Bobby said, without further explanation, though Jody nodded knowingly. Dean pursed his lips. Castiel continued to look pointedly out the window.

“That one? Huh.” She raked her eyes over Castiel's tense shoulders. “Introduce me later, I guess. There's something more serious to deal with.”

“Guessing the fire was no accident?” Bobby said.

“I wouldn't think so. The first fire team on the scene disappeared.”

“Disappeared? Like no bodies?” Sam ran a hand through his hair, nervously.

“Not a sign of them. The hose was on, the fire was out, the truck was running, but all five of the fire fighters were gone.”

“Do you think it was the Leviathans?” Sam asked.

Bobby nodded. “I wouldn't doubt it.”

“Yeah, it's not like everything out there wants to kill us too,” Dean threw in, rolling his eyes,.

“Leviathans?” Jody asked. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Some new thing, Bobby?”

“Apparently, some really, really old thing. Know next to nothin' about them, except that they'll be back, for us, somethin' like that, and that even heaven is runnin' scared.”

“Sounds more like a terminator than a monster,” Jody laughed, though she sobered quickly when all Sam, Dean, or Bobby offered was a half-hearted smile. “In all seriousness though, boys. You should split. I don't think it's a good idea for you to hang around. Something like this, people are going to get _involved_. I'm gonna have a helluva time covering your asses.”

“Listen, you don't need to do that,” Sam started, though Jody held up her hands to shush him.

“I want to. You boys keep people safe when I can't and that's enough for me, okay? Though all of you owe me a case of beer. Now, go!” She gave Bobby a playful smack. Castiel was watching them discreetly, though he immediately turned when the hunters moved to clamor back into the car. Dean took the driver's seat, and Sam climbed back into the backseat without complaints. “Where will you be going?” Jody called to them as Dean turned the ignition.

“Well,” Bobby said, considering as he buckled the passenger seatbelt. “Rufus had a cabin up in Montana. Good a place as any. I'll give you a ring when we get there.”

“Good. Don't keep me waiting, Singer.” She gave a little salute as Dean began to back out of the alleyway.

Dean groaned. “Which part of Montana, Bobby?”

“Middle of the Rockies. Just south of the Canadian border. Near Whitefish.”

“That's another day's drive,” Dean said, grinding his teeth. Jody waved them back onto the road, and they drove all night in silence.

 

 

 

[ ](http://weareallpuppets.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/978/33815)

The cabin was a nice enough place, as far as hunter hold ups went. With two stories, the men barely even had to acknowledge each other. Castiel took full advantage of that, squirreling away in the attic room no sooner than they had gotten there. He barely spoke a word. Sam made the effort, but it wasn't for much- Castiel would occasionally thank him for food. In turn, Sam didn't speak to Dean or Bobby, instead throwing himself against Rufus's stack of books while Lucifer tore out the pages.

“So,” Dean finally said on the third day. “Talk to me.”

Sam attempted to smirk. “You want to talk? Who are you, and what have you done to Dean?”

Dean frowned. “Yeah I wanna talk. It's boring when there's only Bobby to brood with. You've been avoiding us.”

“I'm fine.”

Dean took the seat adjacent to Sam. “Death kinda spilled the beans on you, dude. And I heard you freaking out the other night. At Daphne's place.” Dean shrugged slightly. “Who were you telling to stop?”

Sam frowned, opened his mouth, closed it. Lucifer leaned on the back of Dean's chair, staring Sam in the eyes. “Go on and lie. It's not like he's your real brother anyway. He probably died up there, alone, in the cemetery, after that beating we gave him.” Sam sucked in a choked breath.

Dean twirled his hand in an irritated 'go on' gesture when Sam didn't answer.

“Just... Lucifer. Mostly.” Adam's twitching body lay over the desk, bleeding out sluggishly onto the floorboards. He'd been screaming for the last hour, 'a nice, new treat for Sammy' the hallucination had said.

Lucifer yawned. “Boring.” He was covered from head to toe in Adam's blood.

“ _Just_ Lucifer? Like what, he's just... chilling with you or something?”

“Kind of.” Lucifer was occupying himself with Adam's body. “I've got it together, Dean. Reality in check.”

Dean eyed him suspiciously. “Well. Good. You're sure?”

“Positive,” Sam said. Adam was looking into his eyes, mouth opening and closing like a fish struggling to for a breath. His head hung over the edge of the desk and he could no longer scream, as his throat was a mess on the carpet, but that didn't stop him from mouthing out words, over and over again, a gory, silent mantra. _Your fault, your fault._

“So,” Dean asked awkwardly, “what have you found in the books?”

“Just old testament stuff. The repeat of everything we heard, you know, beasts and all. Though I guess they're supposed to be slain at the end of the world.”

“Nothing on how to kill them either than that?” Dean asked.

“The old testament isn't exactly a hunter handbook. I still think we should try to contact that angel again. We could use some holy oil, trap 'em.”

“No, out of the question. Besides, they seemed pretty scared of the Leviathans, so I doubt they'll really be of use. I've been thinking though, Daphne isn't the only prophet we know. We should try Chuck out, see if he knows something.”

“He's _missing_ , Dean. From the _angels_. Besides, dude, I tried that pretty much the second we got here. His number is disconnected. I tried the fan girl, Becky? Turns out he's been missing since around the time I went to Hell. She almost got arrested for his disappearance and everything and she has no clue where he is. The whole fan community was the same, a bust.” Sam frowns a bit, with distaste. “So if he's not _dead_ , he's keeping out of the way of both angels and humans.”

 

Dean groaned. “A grand total of nothing then.”

Bobby entered from the hallway, causing both boys to pause. “Have either of you seen a bottle of Vicodin lying around?” He scratched his scalp.

“Bottle a' what?” Dean asked, smirking. “Is a certain lady coming over later?”

“That's Viagra, ya ass. Vicodin is the pain killer.” Bobby crossed his arms as Sam covered his mouth attempting not to laugh. “I swear I had them in my bag.” He shrugged. “So have either of you seen Mr. Angel recently?”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “When I take his food to him.”

“So you've noticed the stink.”

Sam looked away shamefacedly. “He's really... dirty, yeah. He hasn't changed from the clothes he got at Daphne's. I think he's avoiding the water. His glass is always still half full when I get the plates.”

“Do you think he remembers something? About the Leviathans?” Dean asked.

Bobby shrugged again. “Maybe, but hell if he'll speak to me. I tried to ask him how he was _feeling_ and he shut the door in my face.”

Sam ran a hand through his hair. “I could try, but I doubt I'll get anything better.” _Your fault, your fau_ – Sam stood and turned away from the hallucination, pretending to pace.

“Well, try,” Bobby said. “It's feeding time. There's a bologna sandwich in the kitchen, so see if he bites.”

Sam ended up outside Castiel's door, a paper plate in hand. The attic was bolted, as it had typically been since Castiel had taken refuge inside, so Sam knocked. Rather than leaving the food as he usually would, Sam stood stock still, trying not to make a sound. Some minutes passed. Finally, the door cracked open, though it slammed shut as soon as Castiel glanced outside. Sam sighed and leaned on the door frame.

“Can I talk to you?”

Castiel didn't answer, and not a sound came from the room.

Sam ran a hand through his hair, letting a quiet moment slip by. “I'm sorry.”

Again, Castiel didn't answer, but the sound of shuffling feet drifted from beneath the door.

“For us. For you getting dragged into this when you remember nothing and none of it makes sense as it is.”

Castiel cracked open the door, just a bit, casting a suspicious blue eye over Sam's face.

“You really were an angel, you know,” Sam said, matching Castiel's gaze. “You helped us stop the apocalypse. You saved a _lot_ of people, Cas. I know that's a lot to believe–”

“It's insane,” Castiel said lowly, fingers curling around the edge of the door. “But you seem to believe it. What does that make you?”

Sam frowned and set the sandwich at Castiel's feet. “Look. I know you're mad at us. Scared.”

“I wonder who would be scared of three huge men covered in guns and knives,” Castiel snipped beneath his breath.

“But,” Sam continued, keeping his gaze locked with Castiel. “But you – when you were you – were our friend. We all made mistakes, but we always forgave each other, in the end. You and Dean were really close.” Sam's breath caught in his chest, and he looked away, just a little.

Castiel studied him from behind his shield of the door, eyes narrow. “You're lying about something.”

“What?”

“If you're not, you're keeping another secret.”

“I'm not,” Sam said. “Why would I lie? I just want you to trust us.” Sam bit his lip and jumped when he felt hands on his shoulders.

“Looks like he's got you all figured out, Sammy,” Lucifer whispered into his ear. The blood on his hands was hot and soaking into Sam's shirt.

Castiel's gaze had turned hard, nails digging into the wood where his fingers curled around the door edge. Dried blood crusted under his nail edges, and there was dirt around the cuticles. “So what brought us here, if we were all so _close_?”

“We all screwed up,” Sam repeated, haltingly. “We've all lied because we thought it would... it would save the others some grief.” He placed his hands on either side of the door frame, face desperate. Castiel smelled like stale sweat. “Please hear me out – ”

“Please,” Castiel interrupted, hand dropping from the door. “I'm tired of excuses.” The door snapped shut.

 

 

 

[ ](http://weareallpuppets.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/978/33815)

The days passed uneasily. Castiel grew dirtier as he continued to avoid their eyes, avoid the areas of the cabin that were occupied unless he absolutely couldn't help it. Sam stopped taking him his meals, trying to lure him out so he could speak to him again, but all it succeeded in doing was driving Castiel further into solitude. Sam fretted and slept uneasily, growing steadily more skittish, his eyes darting for things that weren't there. Bobby and Dean drank. Dean drank the most. The hunters all attempted to research.

At the end of the second week, a car sounded at the end of the driveway. Bobby got his gun, Dean and Sam the holy water, but in the end all they had was a wet and disgruntled Jody Mills. After her initial ire wore off, she greeted them all with a hearty hug and slap on the back, making sure to drip holy water on their clothes. “When you said Whitefish, you really meant the middle of goddamned nowhere,” she snipped jokingly, smacking Bobby on the back. “I would have stopped for lunch if I'da known it would take another hour to get here.”

Bobby shrugged, opening the front door for her. “The more hidden, the better.”

Castiel, looking drawn and dirty with sweat, peeked quickly from the hallway with pinprick pupils as Jody entered, then retreated, stumbling back up the stairs.

“He's still not right, I see?” Jody asked quietly, slipping an arm through Bobby's in a natural and friendly gesture. He flushed a little.

“Nah. He's not tried to run away or anything, but he's actin' like a rabbit among wolves,” Bobby said, leading her to the kitchenette. He grabbed the whiskey from the shelf, frowning at the contents. “Swear there was more,” he muttered to himself. He poured them all a shot. “He won't take a goddamned bath either.”

“And no leads, I'm guessing?” she asked, eying the bottle.

“Nothin', but biblical nonsense,” Dean said, shrugging and downing his shot in a gulp. “Got the books we asked for?”

“Of course. You need to organize your library, Bobby.” She sniffed at him, thrust a heavy bag on the counter top, then downed her shot. “We still haven't found the missing firefighters. It's become big news, all over, something like that. I'm tryin' to keep those news idiots from the house, but some crew from Pierre filmed it and got it all over. It won't be safe to go back, not for awhile, I don't think.” She frowned. “I'm not even letting my deputy boys watch the house. I don't want any more deaths. You think it was definitely these... Leviathan jokers?”

“Well,” Sam said, smoothing his hair. “Most other things leave something behind. Usually a body. Or pieces of one. Some blood. It could have been demon possession, but... how many guys were there?”

“Five.”

“Not like it's impossible. We don't even know what the demons are doing on either side and I'm not exactly raring to call Crowley or Meg up. Could be angels too, I guess, but we don't know what _they're_ doing.” He sent a glare at Dean, who merely shrugged, face impassive. “The Leviathans are just the ones we know are coming for us at this _very_ moment.”

“'We'll be back for you,' they said,” Dean quoted, mockingly. “They'll have to get in line.”

“And all we did was try to put them back in their box.” Bobby shook his head. “Like we needed another thing tryin' to kill us.”

“So, we don't know anything.” Jody rested her elbows on the table and put her face in the cup of her hands. “Zip.”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Listen,” Jody said, pushing her shot glass at Bobby. “My best guy is watching out for me at the station, and he knows the deal, after all those family members came back from the dead, you know.” She paused, eyes leveled at the table, but composed herself quickly. “I'm gonna stay up here a few weeks. And before you guys object,” she said harshly, because all three hunters had opened their mouths. “I know what I'm doing. I want to help, or at least make sure you don't kill yourselves.” She swiped the bottle from Bobby, who had just poured the shot, and downed the rest. “I know Bobby, and I know you two. You'll die of alcohol poisoning if this mystery goes unsolved another week.” She grinned at them.

The conversation turned away from monsters, if only for a little while. Jody did her best to pick up their smiles, regaling them with stories of stupid criminals. “And this idiot,” she said, needing to pause to laugh heartily, “this idiot actually tried to threaten a team of armed police with just his hand under his sleeve. What's worse is one of my deputies actually–” A loud shattering crash sounded from upstairs, interrupting her story and wiping the hard earned smiles from Sam and Dean's faces. “What was that?”

“Came from the attic,” Dean said.

“What's he doin'?” Bobby asked, squinting suspiciously upwards. A small series of thumps rattled across the ceiling.

Jody frowned and rose, straightening her jacket. “He doesn't exactly strike me as the dancing type. Should we check it out?”

“No, I've got it,” Sam said, rising wearily and ushering her back to her seat. “I'll check it out.”

Jody looked at him sadly, crossing her arms on the counter. “He's not your responsibility, Sam.”

Sam merely shook his head and trudged out of the kitchen, slowly making his way down the hall and up the stairs. He knocked three times on Castiel's door, though he wasn't surprised when no one answered. The staccato beat of thumping against wooden floorboards continued. “Cas?” Sam called gently. “Can you open up?” _Thump_. “Cas?” Sam pressed his ear against the door and listened. _Thump, thump_. A pitiful gasp. “Dean! Get up here!”

Sam turned the handle, startled when it swung open and he nearly fell face first into the attic.

The room was wrecked. Chairs were overturned, curtains ripped down from the windows and strewn over the ground, paper littered the floor, the ripped up and crumpled sections of many maps. Some pieces were tacked up on the walls, routes covered in broad strokes of ink and what looked like blood. A pervasive stale smell drifted around the room, with the underlying stinging scent of vomit and whiskey.

Sam found Castiel retching and huddled, half-hidden, in the corner behind his small cot bed, just out of sight. A few label-less water bottles littered the space around him, one clutched in his hand, dripping siphoned whiskey onto the floorboards. Bobby's bottle of Vicodin lay on its side between his legs, several tabs scattered out onto the ground. The bedside lamp was in pieces.

“Jesus.” Sam ran to his side and knelt beside Castiel, dragging him into his arms, trying to keep him from bucking away and ignoring the stench of _unclean_. Castiel's palms were bleeding from shards of the ceramic lamp, but he didn't seem to notice, thrashing as he was. His breathing came in shallow, desperate gasps.

Dean came bursting into the room, Jody and Bobby hot at his heels, though they paused to gape at the destruction. “Been looking for those,” Bobby muttered under his breath, glancing at the maps. “What the hell happened here?”

“Dean, help me,” Sam pleaded weakly.

“Oh God.” Jody covered her mouth and nose.

“Fuck,” Dean groaned. He pushed the cot aside to make more room, knocking over the bedside table. A full glass of water fell with it and smashed, tossing glass and water at their feet.

“No,” Castiel muttered unintelligibly. He swatted at their hands weakly, limbs uncoordinated and not connecting, but he was squirming strongly enough to nearly throw them off, his boots beating on the floorboards. “Lemme go. Lemme-” His eyes rolled in his head.

“We gotta get him to the hospital!” Jody gritted out as she tried to restrain his legs.

“We can't, we can't go to hospitals, it's not-” Sam replied, face pale. “We're more than an hour from the nearest hospital.”

“No, n- _no_!” Castiel clawed at Sam's wrists and Dean's face, leaving angry red marks along their skin.

“Well, he's gonna die if we do nothing!”

“He shouldn't have- didn't take enough to kill him,” Bobby said, shaking the Vicodin bottle, though he couldn't look Sam or Dean in the eyes. “We just have to make sure he gets it all out and doesn't suffocate while doin' it. Get him to the bathroom.” Castiel retched again.

“You sure about that?” Dean asked harshly, teeth bared, though he withered under Bobby's answering glare. Sam helplessly tried to pick Castiel up, but he jerked out of his arms. Dean grabbed Castiel's wrists, squeezing hard enough that it forced Castiel's clawed hands to unfurl and his aimless, contracted eyes to finally land on Dean's. His drug induced fear and his struggling eased, but his chest was hitching, convulsing, beyond his control and his eyes were drifting closed, as though he were sleepy.

Sam finally managed to get a good hold, arms hooking under Castiel's and cradling him back against his chest. The skin around Castiel's eyes and mouth was a disarming bluish colour. Bobby and Dean took a leg each, while Jody ran ahead to keep their path clear until they reached the dirty bathroom, where they dumped Castiel in the ringed tub and ran the tap.

Castiel reacted the second the cool water touched his legs, reeling himself back against the tub edge, nails scrabbling uselessly. “Get it off me! Get it out of me!” He screamed wildly, trying and slipping but failing to climb out of the water. Sam and Dean held him down as he began to spasm.

Castiel did not die in the following hours, but he screamed the whole time.

 

 

 

[ ](http://weareallpuppets.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/978/34220)

Castiel sat by the attic window, skin pale in the morning sun but for the ring of bruises around his wrists and down his arms. He held a ripped map in his hands. Dean and Sam watched him, quietly, from the stairwell.

“So are you ready to talk to us?” Dean asked, stepping inside. He flipped an overturned chair right side up and straddled it, leaning his elbows on the back. Sam remained back, hanging in the doorway and crossing his arms, deep red nail marks traced across his skin. Castiel glanced at Dean, then Sam, and tipped his head ever so slightly in compliance. “Good.” Dean scratched the matching nail marks on his cheeks, itchy with healing.

Castiel crumpled the piece of map in his hands, tossing it to the floor, where it lay amongst the broken glass. “It's a bit useless to ask me anything,” he finally said, shrugging. His eyes were rimmed with red, and he looked frail– hollowed out and smaller than he'd ever seemed. Jimmy Novak had been a solid enough man and Castiel had given his body a phenomenal presence, but in the light of the morning after his near death, he looked no more substantial than a shade. “I don't know why I took all those pills,” he continued, folding his legs, bringing his knobby knees up to his chest. “And I don't know why I stole those maps. I don't know why I wrote on them or what the hell the scribbles mean, if anything.”

Sam uncrossed his arms, pushing himself off the doorway. His boots crunched on broken glass. “Do you- What do you remember?”

Castiel laughed hollowly, scratching his face. A beard was growing in, rough and abrasive. “Oh, I _remember_ stealing the pills. The whiskey. There are no holes in my memory after I woke up with you lovely people. I _remember_ everything but I just don't know _why_ I did any of it.”

Dean's face had hardened considerably, his hands balled into fists. “Why did you steal the pills?”

“Why do you think?” Castiel countered. “I'm in pain. They are pain relief.” He picked at the dirt still beneath his nails.

“What sort of pain?” Sam asked, walking into the room in earnest and joining his brother in flipping over and taking a chair.

Castiel laughed soundlessly, rubbing his red-rimmed eyes. “Why do you care?”

“It might be important,” Dean said honestly. Sam grimaced at his bluntness.

“Oh, I _see_. Fine. Imagine every single inch of your skin feels bruised, and your very insides are trying to rip apart and devour you whole.” He gestured to himself with clawed hands, raking his yellowish fingers down his skinny chest. The pajamas Daphne had bought for him had been ruined, covered in his dirt and sweat and vomit, and laid as burnt ashes in the yard. Dean's jeans were too wide on him, and Sam's shirt much too long. “The pain has been growing worse every day since I woke up. I needed to dull it.” Castiel paused, covering his mouth and holding in the weak contents of his stomach.

Dean scrubbed a hand down his face and Sam cast him a concerned look, but Dean just waved him away. “Dude, you could have...” He trailed off, balling his fist in front of his mouth.

“What, talked to you? Why?” Castiel turned his darkly ringed eyes to Dean. “Do you have my best interests at heart? You talked about monsters, but all the evidence I've seen? Points to _you_ and _me_.”

“We're not monsters,” Sam replied, face pale.

“I don't know that. You still haven't _proven_ that. If that Inias person really was an angel... what sort of people run from angels?”

“You don't remember what the angels have done to us!” Dean cut back, nearly rising from his chair, though Sam put a heavy hand of his shoulder to stop him.

“And you won't tell me,” Castiel said, simply. “Will you?”

Dean looked away, shamefaced. Sam covered his mouth, speaking slowly. “We... will. We don't want to keep anything from you. It's just... painful. And a very long story. And we're not exactly _good_ at talking.”

"Yet you speak so much." Castiel watched them closely, scratching incessantly at the dry, flaky skin of his knuckles. His nostrils flared slightly. “You know what. I don't want to know anything.” He shrugged. “No use remembering what I'm not anymore. I know enough to know I don't want to be him.” He wrapped his shaking arms around himself, leaning his face against the cool windowpane. “But perhaps whoever I am now should throw in the towel with you, as my own company clearly wasn't working.”

“But will you try to trust us?” Sam asked slowly.

Castiel frowned so seriously that Sam blanched. “Only if you bring me soup.” Sam let out a startled chuckle despite himself, and Castiel looked thoughtful. “Chicken soup. Have I had chicken soup?” His stomach gurgled.

Dean's smile didn't quite reach his eyes when he it turned to Castiel. “You know what, I don't think you have. I make a mean chicken soup, family recipe. Guess I could make some.”

Later that evening, they five of them sat around the kitchen table all enjoying a second bowl of Dean's soup. “I'm sure I am in no capacity the person you expected to meet,” Castiel said to Jody, when they finally were introduced, shakily edging onto a chair next to the kitchen table. He'd lost the second bowl of soup to the kitchen sink, and had cracked open a beer instead.

"I'm not disappointed," she said shrugging. "More interesting than I thought you would be honestly." Castiel let out a hollow laugh.

Jody and Bobby had taken it upon themselves to discover the secrets of Castiel's maps, though there seemed to be no real secrets to find. The scribbles were broad, senseless circles, whose only common aspect seemed to be a wide swath of either Eastern Pennsylvania or Westernmost New Jersey.

“Could be Allentown, Pottsville, Bethlehem, hell it could be nowhere,” Bobby said. “Lot of game lands and old roads out there and it could be nothing but crazy drug addled nonsense. No offense,” he added to Castiel.

“None taken,” Castiel said, taking a generous gulp of his beer. His face was clean, but the sweet powder smell of soft wipes was still overpowered the ripe sting of alcohol and bile. Sam frowned.

“All the maps were of that one area though,” Sam added helplessly. His eyes darted over Bobby's shoulder, eying Lucifer dressed in Jessica's skin. She waited, quiet and white, and smiling. “I- I mean, when is anything ever nothing in our lives?”

Dean leaned forward onto his elbows. “I think you know we have one option at this point.”

Jody frowned and cut him off. “You're too quick to stop thinking of other ones is more like it.”

“We should check it out,” Dean continued, unabashed.

“Dean,” Sam said quietly, “I don't think I'm-” He faltered. Jessica's round face has been replaced by Madison's sad, drooping eyes. “I don't think that's a good idea.”

“Do you have a better one?” Sam reluctantly shut his mouth.

“I don't like it,” Bobby said. “Seems like it's too dang obvious if you ask me.”

“I don't like it either,” Dean sighed. “But hey, that's nothing different.”

“I think it's an excellent idea,” Castiel said, though his sardonic smile spoke otherwise. He pushed the bottle away from him. “We'll simply drive around in circles until we hit something.”

"We have nothing else to go on, so let's just go. We can head down the I-90. Maybe hit Bethlehem first. Monsters love their biblical place names. Besides, it's not like we're not used to things trying to kill us."

“Speak for yourself,” Castiel retorted, brusquely.

The decision practically made itself, and by the next morning, the Impala was packed and Sam, Dean, and Castiel piled into their seats.

“You sure you want to do this?” Jody asked, putting the last duffel bag in the Impala's trunk. She eyed Sam's bruised and tired eyes, then the case of beer tucked on the floor of the back seat, and finally Castiel already pulling one out. “By all rights, at least one of you should be in the hospital.” Bobby opened the gate to the rocky trail.

“Yeah, of course we're sure,” Dean replied. He patted the steering wheel and rolled his eyes. “What could go wrong?”


	4. III

 

[ ](http://weareallpuppets.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/978/34592)

The thick smell of blood and smoke wakes Sam, closely followed by throbbing pain making itself known across his face. Letting loose a moan, Sam begins to struggle. There are hands on him, hands about to tear him open and climb inside as they had again and again for the last two centuries. His eyes shoot open, and in the moment before his eyes can focus, Lucifer swims before him, looming with Adam's blood on his hands. Sam claws at the hands on his chest, but Lucifer only laughs, sounding distant, and the tone is wrong.

“Sam, wake up,” Dean is saying, worry in his voice, shaking him none too gently. Sam dazedly releases Dean's hands.

Sam blinks, but can barely see at all in the utter darkness. His front is soaking, warm and sticky with blood oozing from his more than likely broken nose. He touches it gingerly and winces. It is definitely broken, and if he doesn't set the bone soon, it will never heal and never look right again. He's not sure whether he has a concussion or not, but his head pounds heavily. “Dean, my nose is broken.”

Dean laughs half-heartedly. “Well, you're alive.” He removes his hands from Sam, rubbing them, and then gingerly holding his own chest. Sam's eyes are adjusting to the night, and he can just see that Dean's seat belt is cinched painfully under his ribs. Very real blood shines on his face, but Sam can't tell where it's coming from, though he can see glass from the windshield glittering around them. “What the hell did we hit?”

“I don't know,” Sam says. “I think it was part of the road. I swear I saw something, but- I can't remember.”

“Awesome,” Dean sighs sarcastically. He carefully unhooks his seat belt and moans with relief as it leaves his chest. “Hey, Cas.” The rain patters on the roof. “Castiel, can you hear me?”

Cas doesn't answer.

“Fuck. Let me...” He tries to open his door, but it won't budge. “...Try to get the door open. I'll get a flashlight. See if Cas is...” Dean trails off, putting all his weight into his door in an attempt to wrench it open.

“Castiel,” Sam says, turning in his seat. He bumps his knees on the dashboard and yelps, and Dean pauses to look at him. “Hurt my legs, shut up.” Dean half-chuckles and resumes trying to get his door open, finally succeeding with a fabulous crunch and tinkle of glass. Sam reaches in the backseat, flapping his hand around and trying to find Castiel while a groaning Dean limps towards the trunk of the Impala. Sam's fingertips brush flesh. “Cas?”

Castiel lets out a pained wheeze, as though he's crying. “I'm injured,” he manages, voice thick with pain. As far as Sam can feel, he's wedged tightly between the front and back seats, trapped.

Sam smiles, but stops because it's too dark to see. “I bet you're fine. Don't worry, we'll get you out of there in just a minute, okay?” Castiel doesn't answer, his breathe coming in weak little gasps.

“Got it,” Dean says, reemerging on the driver's side, flashlight in hand and pointed upwards towards his own face. The cuts on his face look superficial, no important parts hurt by the glass, but he's soaking from the torrent of rain outside. Despite the broken windows, it's dry in the car cabin and Sam does not envy his brother. Dean shines the beam of light towards the front of the Impala. "Son of a bitch. How does a road get like that?"

"An earthquake, maybe? And being really abandoned."

Dean frowns and climbs back inside the car, shining his flashlight in Sam's face. “Ooh, you got messed up, bro. But, on the bright side, it can only improve your looks.”

“Haha,” Sam rolls his eyes. “Say that to yourself.”

“Battle scars, man,” Dean says, stroking the cuts on his face and grinning. “How about you, Cas? Awake now?” He turns the flashlight towards Castiel, and his smile falls. He was not as lucky as they were. His eyes are blown wide like a child who has hurt themselves for the first time – which isn't too far from the truth – and he's clutching his arm tightly near the elbow, breath coming in shallow gasps. The skin of his forearm is already turning a nasty dark purple, and there's a wrong angle to it, arm curved in a way human arms are simply not meant to curve. Sam cringes.

Cas blinks and turns his wide, pale eyes from the offending limb to Sam. “I told you. I'm injured.” He attempts to wiggle free from the seats, a deep grunt of pain echoing in the cabin of the car, but he barely moves.

Sam's face twitches and he almost laughs, but manages to stop himself – panic is bubbling just beneath the surface of Castiel's expression. “Yeah, I can see that. Don't freak out, okay? We'll fix you up.” He does laugh, in what he hopes is a reassuring manner. “That's not even _close_ to the worst break I've seen.”

Castiel's eyes bore into Sam, as though trying to tear into him, before he finally nods and closes his eyes. Clutching his injured arm, he breathes deep, teeth gritting. He manages, with much effort, to wiggle and wrench himself free of the clutching embrace of the Impala's seats, emitting a thick moan as he finally lies flat on her back seat.

“Son of a BITCH!” Dean yells, breaking the relative quiet and startling Sam and Cas. He beats his hands on the wet steering wheel, the full extent of the damage to his beloved car washing over his face. “I just- I just fixed her, man.” He breathes deep, though it catches in his chest- a few ribs bruised, at least- and runs his palms over the Impala's dash, as though to apologize. “Sorry, baby, I'm not mad at you,” he whispers to the dashboard.

“You've fixed her from worse,” Sam says, reassuringly. He covers his mouth as he lets loose a choking cough. The blood from his nose, running down the back of his throat, is making him nauseous.

Dean slips him a look. “Can you get out on your side, Sammy? How 'bout you Cas?”

“My arm is broken,” Cas says by way of answer, annoyance clear in his tone.

Sam spits blood onto the floor and jiggles his door handle. “I think so.” He pushes all his weight against it and tumbles out of the car, swearing as he lands hard on his bruised knees on the wet asphalt. Dean laughs and crawls back out of the cabin, crossing behind the car and offering Sam a hand. Sam takes it, frowning at the nails marks bleeding lightly on his wrists. “Sorry,” he mutters.

Dean shrugs. “Now I got a full set,” he says lightly, gesturing at the mostly healed nail marks Castiel had left on his arms and neck. He pats Sam on the back, frowning deep when he turns and surveys the outside damage to the Impala with his flashlight. “ _Dammit_.”

Sam stretches and stiffly walks to the back door, trying out his strength on the handle while Castiel watches him from behind the cracked back window, unamused. Sam's already getting soaked in the rain, and his wet hands slip a few times before he finally gets a good grip on it. Not that it matters. For all he tugs, it doesn't budge open in the slightest, though he does manage to pull the handle clean off. He holds it limply in hand, eyes wide and looking pointedly away from Dean. “Uh- Sorry.”

Lips pursed, Dean snatches the handle from Sam's hand and tosses it on to his seat. “Can you roll down the window at least? Open the other door?” he asks Castiel. When all he gets in return is a frown, he sighs and walks around the car, swearing when the other door proves to be as unmovable as the the first. He swears loudly and trudges to the back of the Impala, tucking the flashlight against his collarbone and opening the undamaged trunk. He roots around in the multitude of weapons, pulling out an axe, shaking his head and looking again. Finally, he removes a pair of brass knuckles from the hood that they rarely get to use, looking them over and donning them, then removing his flannel shirt and wrapping it around his fist and arm. “ _Move_ ,” he tells Sam, thrusting the light at him, who obliges quickly, his free arm raised in a peaceable gesture. “Keep your eyes closed, Cas.”

Cas covers his head, and with a whispered ' _sorry, baby_ ' Dean smashes in the cracked window, grimacing the whole while but taking care to break out every last bit of glass so that the hole is clean. When he finishes, he shakes out his shirt, shoves it back on, and stuffs the brass knuckles in his jeans pocket.

Without being prompted, Sam comes back to Dean's side, reaching in with his brother and looping their arms around Castiel's shoulders as best they can. Sam's got the injured arm and Castiel cries out in pain as they attempt to tug him out.

But they forgot about the rain. The second it touches Castiel's skin he shouts and wrenches his arms away, the unpleasant grinding of his broken bones sounding through the air. He curls in on himself and sobs with pain.

Sam looks on helplessly, though Dean's face only hardens. "The rain isn't gonna stop," he says, placing his hands on his hips. "We can't stay here all night," Castiel looks at him with reproachful eyes, red rimmed with his pained tears.

"Here, let me… look for a coat for you, okay?" Sam says.

Castiel's eyes seem no less reproachful when they land on Sam, so he turns away, digging through the trunk until he finds Castiel's over coat. Dean grimaces at it, still covered in blood and ichor, though Castiel looks at it with no recognition.

"How am I supposed to put this on?" Castiel asks, frowning. Sam merely drapes it over him, and the Winchesters try again. Castiel slides bonelessly to the wet ground, panting and pale, and even though he recoils from the water making its way through the knees of his jeans, it's several moments before he can make his way to his woozy feet, coat held over his head with his one good arm.

“See, you're alright,” Sam says, putting a hand reassuringly between Castiel's shoulder blades. A physical ache courses through Sam's chest that has nothing to do with being injured when Castiel just looks at him, searchingly. He could almost be _Castiel_ again, but for the growing beard.

Sam turns to see another pair of eyes on him. Dean's eyebrows are raised, his mouth in a slight shrug, as if he's considering something. Sam shoots him a glare, but drops his hand, embarrassed.

“Our legs all work, right?” Dean says, still with a thoughtful look on his face. “Then let's get walking. Get the stuff, Sam. I'm gonna try Bobby and Jody."

Castiel tries to cover himself better with the coat and Sam goes back to the trunk, grabbing their closest duffle bag and an arm full of guns. There are shotguns and clothes in the bags already, as well as a canister of salt and other such essentials, so Sam, being the only one with an uninjured torso, lugs it over his shoulder. Dean already has the demon-killing knife tucked into his belt, so he keeps the colt for himself, shoving a gun for Dean and a few extra clips in whatever spare spaces in the bag he can find. He grabs two more flashlights, but shoves one in his back pocket and lights the other.

Dean swears. "I can't get through. Sam, try yours."

Sam pulls out every cell phone they have, but a few are dead and not a single one will go through until he tries the one that still has the long dead John Winchester's number. It rings four times and goes to voicemail. "Uh… Bobby. It's Sam. Please call us back- we crashed the car, but we're alive and…" He glances at Castiel's broken arm. Cas looks increasingly distressed by the rain. "…Alive. Not sure where we are yet, but we'll call you back when we can. Last town we passed through was…"

"Outside Bloomsburg," Dean offers.

"Outside Bloomsburg," Sam repeats. "The Impala's in bad shape. So we'll need the truck. Call us back." Sam closes the phone with a flick of his wrist.

“Fan-freakin'-tastic, we all ready now?” Dean asks, his breath puffing out before him in a white cloud. “My important bits are freezing off, so let's get going.”

Without any fanfare, they take off down the road, climbing over the broken section with some difficulty. The rain ebbs and flows, and Sam and Dean's twin light beams dance off the rain drenched asphalt. Dean attempts to call Bobby several times, but to no avail. Not a single bar can be found and though John's phone rings every time, it continuously goes to voicemail. Sam leaves a short, repeated message each time. There's not a building or light in sight and it's getting colder.

Castiel's pace is weak to begin with, but after twenty minutes and the rain becoming sleet, he's breathing hard to keep up with their longer legs and shivering piteously, partially from the cold and partially from the water that he can't quite avoid getting covered in. Sam and Dean share an unspoken look and each sling an arm under him, practically carrying him as the night wears on.

Eventually, the back wood road seems to level out, becoming much more like an average highway, though there's still nothing in sight but a lot of trees and, strangely, fog. A street sign hangs awkwardly over an empty intersection.

“Locust Street. Really? Who the hell names a street _Locust Street_?” Dean stops and says, though they turn at Locust Street anyway, as things seem a bit clearer going that way.

“You know what,” Sam says, glancing at an empty plot of of land. A rickety wooden set of doors lead down into the ground, into a basement. “I think we're in an abandoned town.”

Dean grunts, clearly uninterested.

“See, there's a bunch of places where it looks like buildings used to be. And we're on a street, right? Not a highway?” Sam gestures to a broken streetlight, leaning awkwardly and emitting no light.

“Fascinating, and very helpful,” Dean says in reply. Castiel lets out a weak snort.

Sam frowns at them both and pokes Dean in the ribs with the hand slung behind Castiel's back. “I'm just saying. And if I'm right, we should look for somewhere dry to sleep for the night, cause we're not gonna get help here.”

Dean sighs. “Okay, well, stop us when you see some shelter.”

Silence falls for a short time, until Castiel stumbles and almost falls as they round the corner of North Street. Both brothers nearly go down in the effort to catch him, and Dean just barely catches Castiel muttering feverishly beneath his breath.

“ _– aperietur, est nimis tarde, est nimis tarde –_ ”

“Whoa, dude, what's up with you?” Dean asks, giving Cas a little shake. "What were you sayin'?"

Castiel blinks, staring at nothing, and does not reply for several seconds. “No, it was nothing.” Sam and Dean look at each other over Castiel's shoulders. "I am in a lot of pain."

“Yeah, okay, just try to get back up, yeah?”

He takes a moment to compose himself, sweating and clutching the coat over his head. The rain drips onto his exposed knuckles and he cringes.

“Hey – Both of you. Look!” Sam says, gesturing to a hill overlooking the rest of the empty town. Light cuts through the dark rain and fog, the only sign of life for miles.

“It's a church,” Castiel says quietly. Dean and Sam share another heavy look. Sam shakes his head disapprovingly, but Dean just shrugs at him.

“I don't like it,” Dean says, eyes narrowed at the light peering over the edge of the trees. “But we might as well try it. It's better than freezing to death out here.”

“I guess you're right,” Sam sighs, readjusting the duffle bag on his shoulder and rearranging his grip on Castiel.

“At least it will not be wet,” Castiel says.

The trek up the hill takes longer than expected, hindered greatly by their aching and broken bones, but they eventually reach the stairs of an unassuming looking church made of mostly grey brick, but positively shining against its dark surroundings. The only colour is in a stained glass likeness of Jesus, hanging out over the edge of the hill and looking rather judgmentally down on them. They slowly crawl their way up the stairs.

“Cheerful,” Dean says weakly towards the window. Jesus looks no less judgmental from closer up, and there are nails through his hands.

Sam and Dean squabble silently over who has to knock, but a quick round of rock, paper, scissors later, and Dean is tapping hesitantly at the door.

“I can walk, I think,” Castiel says, brushing Sam's arm off him and wrapping his coat tighter around his torso and head. Sam awkwardly reaches for him, but he leans on the railing instead.

There's a scraping noise from within, before the doors swing wide open, flooding light out into the night. A man in full priest garb stands before them, achingly handsome in a familiar way. Sam squints at his features, but Dean just turns on his charm. “Sorry to bother you so late, Father,” he says, putting his hands on his hips and casting his eyes over the black clad figure. The priest's smile is wide enough to have been cut by a knife. “Our car broke down.”

“Broke down?” the priest asks, eying the blood on their clothes and faces. The rain has washed some of it away, but the cuts are still visible, and leaking.

“Crashed,” Sam admits, still looking curiously at the priest. “We're not entirely sure where we _are_. Do you have a phone? Or, or a map, or something?”

The priest shakes his head, still smiling. “There aren't any working phone lines in this area, son. Haven't been since the seventies.”

Dean swears. “I don't suppose you have a mechanic wherever this is then?”

The priest shakes his head once more. “This town only boasts a handful of people, unfortunately. But where are my manners! Come inside, come in out of the rain. It's like the deluge out there.” They filter inside one by one. Dean averts his eyes towards the inner church and away from the priest's gaze, hand tightening over the gun in his pocket.

“I can help you. Give you wine for those injuries.” Sam squirms when he enters, as the gaze falls to him. The priest is looking him up and down, but he's unable to tell if the look is lust, curiosity, or hunger. “If you need, you can sleep _here_ , for the night.

Castiel comes last. He hasn't said a thing for the entire exchange, standing stock still behind Dean's shoulder. Unbeknownst to Sam or Dean, he stays in the rain for several seconds after they have gone inside, clutching his broken wrist and staring uncomprehendingly up into the priest's face, eyes blown wide. The coat slips off from over his head. He takes a shuddering step backwards, towards the stairs, but the priest only raises a single finger over his thin, smiling mouth. Castiel comes quietly inside.

“This used to be such a nice little town," the priest laments when he catches up to them. "But the few of us still here are good, Christian people.” He struts, like a king in his castle, hands gesturing here and there to unimpressive pews, a dusty organ, candle stands in bad need of a polish. “We still have mass every Sunday, even after the fire.”

"The fire?" Sam enquires.

“The mine fire a few decades ago,” the priest says. “Still burning today. Perhaps you noticed the steam?”

“And you still _live_ here?” Dean asks.

The priest shrugs as they reach the front of the church. “Some places are hard to leave. They're home.”

“So... Where is here?” Dean asks, moving to stand as far away from the father as he can.

"Oh," The priest looks at him, gaze flickering to the gun in Dean's pocket, though his smile is ever present. “I thought perhaps you were tourists. Centralia. It was a nice little town,” the priest repeats. The eucharist sits on the pew, half empty. There's a lipstick mark on the rim of the goblet. “I'm no doctor, but that arm looks like it needs to be set, correct?” He takes a hold of Castiel's broken arm just beneath the break. Castiel winces, but says nothing, even as a bit of water drips from his wet coat onto his neck.

“Drink,” the Father commands, grabbing the goblet and putting it to Castiel's lips. Castiel obliges slowly, tilting his head and pouring the deep red wine into his mouth. It runs sinfully over his chapped lips, sliding down his stretched throat and staining the neckline of his borrowed shirt. Sam and Dean both swallow, but also tighten the grip on their concealed weapons. “When you feel warm,” the priest says, “when Christ had imbued you with strength, we'll fix your arm.”

“If you don't mind, Father...” Dean begins.

“Richard.” His wide smile crinkles the edges of his eyes. Castiel keeps drinking.

“Father Richard. We have some experience with broken bones, so we'll take care of it. If you'll just show us a place we can sleep, we'll be outta your hair. There a motel nearby?”

“Nothing of the sort. My nearest patron lives a mile down the road. As I said, you can sleep here.”

“Thank you, Father,” Sam says, hands clenching near his belt. “We're very grateful. But we'd like to go to bed now, then. We can fix his arm.”

“Oh, it's no trouble,” Father Richard says, still holding Castiel's arm. No one moves. The last of the eucharist wine disappears behind Castiel's lips, and he takes a small gasp for air. Sam fingers the trigger of the colt in his jeans, Dean does the same with his pistol. “But if you insist!” The priest lets Castiel go and leads them off to the staircase behind the pews, as friendly as can be. Dean follows in front, hesitantly, and Sam returns to Castiel's side, helping him up climb the stairs. They are lead to an attic, even dustier than the rest of the church, with several small, dusty mattresses strewn around the floor and one cot. “If you're up at dawn, I'll eat breakfast with you boys before mass." Father Richard lets them pass him into the room and then swings himself back into the doorway, blocking it. "Are you sure you have everything you need?"

"We're good," Dean says, matching Richard's pose and gaze.

"Good. I'll leave you to it, yes? Please _do_ try to keep the noise down, and sleep tight.”

“So,” Dean says when Father Richard's footsteps have faded from the stairwell. “That was the creepiest priest we've ever met.”

Sam nods in agreement. “There is literally no way this isn't something fishy.”

“Pretty much. But what are we going to do about it, until we know what we're dealing with? My baby is all messed up, and so are we. We'll take it as it comes. All I know is I am sleeping with my gun in case it gets all Texas Chainsaw Massacre up in here.”

“Alright, I'll keep watch first. I got the most sleep.”

“Actually,” Cas says, making both brothers jump. “That was me.” He looks a bit pink in the face, and dazed, as though he has just woken up. The rain has washed away most of the stench of whiskey, but it is replaced with the tang of church wine.

Dean shakes his head firmly. “Dude, your arm's broken. You won't be much use at defending yourself if something does happen. Speaking of which, do you feel imbued with Christ's strength yet?”

“I'm not sure...” Cas says.

“Give it another minute. I need to fix your nose first,” he says, rounding on Sam and gesturing to the only cot. “Come here, don't want to ruin your face anymore.” Sam frowns, but approaches, sitting down. Dean considers Sam's nose. “Blow your nose. Use your shirt. There's too much blood and that thing was ruined even before you got blood all over it.”

“It was your shirt,” Sam says. It's several years old, and worn, but he still frowns before shrugging off his jacket and removing it, left with only his blood stained undershirt. He morosely blows his nose, grimaces at the contents, and throws the shirt into a dusty corner, where it stays.

Dean kneels before him, scooting himself slowly between Sam's legs. He lays his palms on Sam's knees, though his hands then shoot back up and make their way to Sam's face, placing his thumbs as gingerly on either side of Sam's nose as he can. “Say cheese, Sammy.”

“Ow! Shit!” Sam's nose makes a less than pleasant noise, but seems to be back on straight. Dean grins at him and pats him on the thigh, quickly standing and ripping open the duffle bag. He digs through it, reaching some first aid supplies on the bottom. He hands Sam some gauze, with which he stuffs his bloody nose. Sam looks at him sullenly.

“Now!" Dean says, clapping his hands together, frowning, and then scrubbing his hands on his jeans to rid them of some of Sam's blood. "Are you ready, Cas?”

“I feel a little warm.”

“Then you're as ready as you're gonna get. Sam, I'm gonna need your help. Move your big butt and let him lie down.” The three of them shuffle around, until Cas is lying down, with Sam sitting next to him and holding his uninjured arm tightly, bracing him. Dean frowns at Castiel's purple arm. “There's no way around it, buddy. This is gonna hurt like a bitch. Think of the sexiest babe you can, okay?”

Castiel stares blankly into his eyes. Dean clears his throat.

“Ready? On three... One, two... three!” Castiel's scream sounds surprised, far more pain than he'd shown even when it had been freshly broken screwing up his features. Both brothers grimace, because Castiel jerked, and the bone is not quite straight. “One more time, Cas, I'm sorry,” Dean grits out, sweating. Sam leans his full weight on Castiel's torso, despite Castiel's gasping for breath. Another swift crack. Castiel sobs, brokenly, but his arm is fixed.

“You handled that better than the first time Dean or I broke an arm,” Sam says. He prepares a simple splint and wraps it in place, while Castiel buries his face into his unbroken arm, curling tightly into himself.

“That was the worst thing I have ever experienced, and that includes throwing up for three days.” Castiel's nails are digging into Sam's arm, leaving fresh marks next to the old ones, but Sam just pats him reassuringly as they all sit quietly for several minutes, Castiel's pained breathing the only sound.

“Hey, at least you weren't blown up, yeah?” Dean jokes, though his smile doesn't reach anywhere near his eyes, and Sam really doesn't find it funny. Castiel doesn't get it.

“I think I want to sleep some more,” Castiel says, rolling over weakly and tucking his head into the crook of Sam's arm.

“You're still all dressed, dude,” Dean says, but Castiel just grunts weakly at him. Sam looks wide eyed at Dean, but shrugs his mouth. They stay quiet until Castiel's breathing evens out, into sleep.

“What a perfect couple,” Dean mocks, half-grin on his face. “Gonna park there all night, Sammy?”

“Not if you would like the space, Dean,” Sam replies, though his tone sound less joking than he'd meant it to. He quietly and carefully extracts himself from Castiel's side, avoiding Dean's eyes.

Sam turns away and, grabbing a pair of sleep pants, begins to change out of what's left of his blood and rain soaked clothes. Dean's eyes linger on Sam's back, catching in the dips astride his spine, just above his waistline. Sam's brown belt clinks as he opens it, as he slides his long, blood-dirty jeans to the floor. Dean eyes dart away at the last second as Sam's face turns. “You gonna stay in your wet clothes too?”

“Nah, I'm just waiting for you to cover your ugly ass,” Dean retorts. Sam tosses another pair of pants at Dean's face.

Once all dry and warm, Dean takes the mattress by the window and Sam takes the one nearest to the door, vigilantly sitting rigid before it with the colt in hand. Dean drifts off without much trouble. Not long after him, Sam falls asleep.

 

[ ](http://weareallpuppets.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/978/34910)

Waking the next morning is slow, reluctant. It's as though Dean is emerging from a fog, his mind hazy and dull, almost hung over. When a semblance of consciousness finally does come, it hits him like a brick, his aching ribs reminding him of their pain, unforgiving. He gasps and rolls to his side, clutching them desperately. It's not the first time he's broken ribs, far, far from it, but it's something that never gets less painful.

When he manages to unscrew his eyes, Dean notices that he's not the first to wake. He sits up shamefaced, and gives Castiel a small nod.

“Hey, man, you're up.” The dawn is grey beyond the single window hanging above Castiel's head. The rain will probably be back.

“I did not sleep long,” Cas whispers. “My arm made it impossible. And my clothes were ... damp. I couldn't stand it.” He gestures sluggishly with the offending arm, eyes not quite meeting Dean's. Dean shrugs in apology.

Dean groans and sits up. “Sorry buddy. That's what broken bones are like. Welcome to the glorious land of the living. The clothes though, that's your fault.”

Cas frowns at him, but doesn't retort. Thoughtfulness plays over his features.

Dean glances at Sam, who is still sleeping. His face is tucked carefully into the crook of his arm, hair falling haphazardly over his face. “Lazy bum. Good thing we didn't get attacked or something.” Sam looks peaceful, so Dean doesn't move to wake him, instead looking back to Castiel. “C'mere and let me look at it.”

“That won't be necessary.”

Dean's eyebrows furrow. “Dude, I have to check the splint, unless you want to have a screwed up arm forever.”

“I won't.” Castiel gestures with the broken arm again, makes a fist and unwraps the splint, Dean gaping as he does. The purple skin has faded, the bones all perfectly straight and aligned without even a hint of swelling.

“Whoa,” Dean says, scooting over on his hands and knees. “How the hell'd you do that?”

“I simply.... willed it.” A short pause. Dean watches Castiel closely. “I feel like I can do the same for others as well. Let me...?”

Dean scoots just a little bit closer and lifts his shirt to expose the purple skin of his chest. Castiel meets his eyes and outstretches his hands hesitantly, cupping the skin tenderly. His palms are warm. Dean watches, entranced, as Castiel's eyes flutter closed and his eyebrows draw tight. _Something_ passes out from him and into Dean. It's nothing like when Castiel had healed him before, where it had been an instantaneous, sterile absence of pain. It's more like the feeling of the best hot pack in the world, slowly easing away the ache of his ribs until he can finally breathe easily again, the pain a dull, unrecognizable ache.

“That's pretty impressive,” Dean croaks out, finally. His tongue feels like sand in his mouth.

“But not surprising.” Castiel's gaze is even, unnerving. _Familiar_.

Dean swallows. “Do you remember–”

“No.” Dean breaks the gaze, casting his eyes downward, breath catching in his chest. “But I remember... the feeling, like I was... more, once. I didn't want to believe that... angel.” Castiel edges a few inches away. “I still don't.”

Dean smiles, small. “Well, that's a start.”

 

[ ](http://weareallpuppets.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/978/34910)

Sam wakes to the pleasant tones of his brother's voice. He winces – his nose had been crushed into the cradle of his arms while he slept and he wasn't supposed to have been asleep at all. He reluctantly opens his eyes, peering in secret at Dean and Cas, their heads bowed together where they sit across the room. The space between them is companionable, bordering on intimate. Sam's stomach drops. Dean says something and Castiel laughs, the age deep rumble of his voice cutting through Sam's bones.

Sam lays quietly, torn between making a show of waking and pretending to sleep a while longer. He can't help the hitch in his breath when Dean leans forward, cups Castiel's face in his hands and kisses him. They fit together perfectly, Dean's nose slating against Castiel's hollowed cheekbones, their plush lips curved together like pieces of a puzzle. Sam closes his eyes, squeezing them shut, but the noise of his brother's tongue in Castiel's mouth is loud enough to drown out his thoughts, wet and stretching through the minutes. Sam wills himself to go back to sleep. A loud, wet slap echoes through the room and Sam opens his eyes.

Castiel's head is twisted horribly, his skin paling and utterly still but for his large and twitching eyes that bore straight into Sam's. Dean plays with the knife in his hand as he coils red ropes from Castiel's belly around his fingers. He regards him coldly with blood dotting amongst his freckles. Sam makes a strangled noise, propelling himself backwards and falling off the mattress. One of his nails catches in the old wood of the floorboards and breaks painfully, but Sam scrambles to his feet.

“Good morning, Sammy,” Dean says, green eyes impassive.

Sam squeezes his eyes shut, breathing as evenly and deeply as he can, but he still sees blood when he opens his eyes.

“ _Look at you_ ,” Dean says, gesturing wide with his arms in the mocking air of a proud brother. He stands slowly, teeth glinting sharply in his mouth. “So messed up. Both of you.” Dean drops the knife and steps over the grey figure of Castiel bleeding out over the floorboards. He motions towards him with a single hand, beaming as though he was a piece of art Dean had created. “They taught me that down below, you know. Kiss 'em and cut 'em. Fools them every time. What did _you_ learn down there, Sam?”

Sam clutches his head, failing to keep his lungs in control any longer. “What the fuck is going on?”

Dean closes the distance between them, pressing his sticky body against Sam's front. “Nothing that we haven't been heading to for this whole time. Nothing that hasn't been written into the ending since the beginning.” Dean's eyes swim with black. “ _Tell me_ , what did you learn, Sammy? You didn't learn to be a monster, did you, because you had that magic feather from the very beginning.” Dean smiles and wraps his arms around Sam's shoulders, like Ruby used to, tacky fingers smearing through his long hair. “We were both monsters, but we've learned how to be kings.”

“This isn't real,” Sam whispers to himself. “You're just my broken head and you're not my brother.”

“Oh, but I am.” Dean laughs. “I will always be inside of him. Bubbling just beneath the surface, waiting for you,” He takes hold of a shiny .45 from his jeans. “My king.” He leans forward, kisses Sam mockingly on the lips, and shoves the gun into his own mouth, black eyes smiling inches from Sam's own. Sam can't hear the shot over the raw scream that bubbles out of his throat.

“Sam! Sammy!”

Dean _is_ within inches of him, but there's no black in his eyes and no blood to be seen. Castiel and Dean are very alive and mostly whole, both staring at him with concern on their faces. Dean is gripping his wrists tightly, his cheek looking puffy and red like recently hit.

“Oh,” Sam manages to gasp. “Sorry.”

“What the hell happened?” Dean asks, leaning in close and searching his eyes, nearly over balancing when Sam pushes him away while covering his mouth. “Dude, were you hallucinating again?”

Sam heaves in breaths, his heart racing in his chest. He manages a heavy nod, leaning against the wall. The nails of his right hand are snapped and a few are bleeding.

“I thought you had it under control.” Dean frowns, crossing his arms.

“I did. I do, most of the time.” Sam eyes Castiel, who is approaching cautiously.

“Here, let me...” Castiel bites his lips, tentatively pressing his palms over Sam's broad chest. Sam's heart slows. A warm sensation envelops his face, and the pain of his nose and fingers fade somewhat.

“Whoa.” Sam stares into Castiel's wide eyes, and Castiel stares back with a small smile.

“Yeah,” Dean says, sounding almost proud. “Cas got some of his mojo back.”

Castiel pats Sam's chest awkwardly. “I don't remember anything,” he says, his tone slightly bitter, before Sam can ask.

“Well, are you okay now, Sam?” Dean asks, eying him up and down. They both know the answer, but Sam fakes a nod anyway. “Good. We should head out. I would rather avoid handsome, devout, and creepy on the way out, know what I mean?” Dean flings some clothes at them, a too small shirt at Sam and a too large one at Cas. They dress quickly, packing away everything but Sam's ruined shirt and Castiel's coat into the duffle. Castiel holds onto the over coat, really looking at it for the first time, tracing his fingers over the stains, and he slips it on as they sneak down the stairwell.

There's no sign of Father Richard. The main body of the church lays empty, pews as dusty as they had been the night before.

“What time is it?” Dean asks.

Sam frowns and checks his watch. “Says nine a.m. Why?”

“Today is Sunday,” Castiel answers for Dean.

Sam pulls the colt out of his jeans, shuffling towards the front doors. “Maybe, they had Mass last night?”

“Yes, and creepy priest? Just went for a walk?”

Castiel moves past them both, standing before the altar and meeting gazes with stained glass Jesus. “Something feels different.”

Dean's eyebrows raise and Sam tilts his head.

Cas frowns. “I don't know what it means.”

Dean shrugs. “Let's just get going, so we can get as far away from this place as possible, alright?”

Sam opens the front doors, but nothing is visible past the first steps of the stairs, drowned in a thick, grey fog. “Whoa.”

“Joyful weather,” Dean remarks.

Sam takes a tentative step outside, hoisting the duffle a little higher on his shoulder. “It's freezing out here.” He squints at the grey around them. “Hey, is it snowing?”

Dean trumps out into the open, holding a hand out to the air. A falling flake catches on his fingertips, but collapses between them as soon as he rubs them together, leaving a dark smear in its wake. “Dude, it's _ash_.”

“The fire.” Cas says, absently. He tracks the falling flakes with his eyes, standing perfectly straight just inside the doors of the church.

“Yeah, I'm sure...” Dean says. Hesitantly, he walks back, taking Castiel by the shoulder. Castiel jumps, but nods slowly, allowing himself to be steered outside.

Thick rolling sheets of fog envelop the streets around them, making it impossible to see further than a few feet in any direction. The smell of smoke hangs in the air.

“What was the street we turned on?” Dean asks.

“North, then Locust,” Sam supplies.

“Okay, so. Where is it?”

Sam frowns. “Probably just a bit further.” They've come across no crossroads that they can see. “Maybe we took off in the wrong direction, is all.”

As if on cue, a lamp post looms out of the smoke. It looks rusted, leaning crooked where it juts out of a broken sidewalk, and the street sign hangs limply, the name nearly scratched off.

“Locust. Whaddya know.”

“But we didn't-” Sam frowns. They keep walking. “Are those buildings?” Sam eventually asks, squinting off into the fog.

Dean shrugs, jogging a bit faster. “C'mon Sammy, you're just seeing th–” He pauses. “Let's just get back to the car. Maybe I can get her to at least run till we're far enough away from here that we can get a phone. Try Bobby again.”

Sam does, and it goes to the voicemail. Sam flips the phone shut, swearing. “He's still not answering.”

“He and Jody are probably just _distracted_ ,” Dean counters, trying to smile.

“And if they are not?” Castiel wraps the dirty trench coat tightly around his shoulders, shivering violently.

“Then we'll deal with it when we get there.”

They walk in silence for several minutes more. “Dean, there _are_ buildings, come look.” They've kept to the center of the road, mostly, but Sam wanders off the beaten path.

“So what? It was probably one we missed last night.”

“It just looks-” Sam frowns. There's a small collection of shacks, drifting in and out of his vision in the distance. “It looks familiar, s'all,” he finishes his sentence with a whisper, shaking his head.

“What was that?”

“Nothing, nothing.” They're quiet for many minutes more, until they reach a painfully familiar break in the road. Dean's face lights up. “Oh baby, I know you're messed up, but I missed you,” he says, climbing over the four foot drop and jogging ahead. He stops. “Baby?”

There's no sign of the Impala.

“Where the hell is my car?” Dean growls, fists clenching.

Sam frowns and searches the immediate area. “Are you sure it was here? I swear we took a different route last night.”

“Don't look at me. I wasn't exactly paying attention.” Castiel moans suddenly, rubbing his temples. “My _head_. It's killing me.”

Sam reaches over and pats him in the small of the back. “It's okay, you're alright. Dean, let's just walk a little further.”

“The car should be _here_!” Dean shouts. Castiel twinges.

“Dean, calm down! It was dark, it was late, I'm sure it's just down the road. We might have turned the wrong way.”

“No,” Dean cuts out, angrily gesturing at the unmistakable chunk of ruined road. “This is the road we hit. Look at it Sam, this is where it was. Where the hell is the car?!” He looks around once, twice more, and then takes off running, disappearing into the fog.

“Dean, stop!” Sam calls as he runs after him. He comes to a halt some feet ahead, when he realizes that Castiel isn't following. “Cas, come on!” Castiel is a bent, dark shadow in the fog and he doesn't move. “Damnit- I'll be right back, don't go anywhere.” Sam growls and takes off running after his brother again, though the oppressive fog quickly erases his sense of direction. “Dean!” he calls out. “Come back, we're going to get lost.”

But Sam seems alone. His pace slows to a hesitant walk, shaky hands gripping the handle of Ruby's knife. “Poor little Sammy, all by his lonesome,” mocks a voice from his right– Sam is never truly alone. Adam falls in step beside him, though the voice that issues forth is Lucifer's. “You done fucked up, kid.”

Sam steels his brow and clenches his fists. “Dean!”

Adam's fluffy golden hair is plastered against his scalp with dirt and sweat, but his eyes shine bright blue out of their grey surroundings. “Always chasing after Dean. Always searching for Dean. How long were we brothers down there, Sam?” Adam's voice slowly melts into his own higher pitch, making Sam tremble. “What were the last words you said to me... I'll save you? What a load of crap.”

Adam swings himself in front of Sam, shoving him back hard enough that he stumbles, falling back and scraping his palms. He stares at the hallucination with terror in his eyes- He's felt them touch him, the sensation easily passed off as a figment of his own mind, but Adam's rage feels horrifyingly real.

“Listen to me!” Adam barks out. “How can you ignore me?” Sam scrambles to his feet and takes off running again, but Adam calls after him. “I'll drag you back to hell myself, _Brother_!”

Sam runs without stopping, aching legs painful as they carry him faster and faster, until he almost runs into his brother face first, only managing to halt himself just in time. He gasps for breath and plants his hands on Dean's shoulders, shaking him. “Dean, what did you think you were _doing_?”

Dean looks at him strangely. “I only went like a few hundred feet, dude. Don't you see this?” Dean looks before them with his green eyes opened wide and his jaw weak. Sam follows his gaze and takes a few steps backward.

Before them, cutting unnaturally across the road, lies a thick and rusted metal fence, at least fifteen feet high and covered in barbed wire, stretching out of view in both directions. When Sam looks closer, he can see shapes moving beyond the fence, hulking things with hunched backs and heavy limbs. Something howls in the distance. And above them, the biggest shape of them all, like a great tower with greater wings, traveling miles upwards into the falling ash sky.

“What the hell...” Sam chokes out, wrapping his arms around himself. A shape nearby sniffs the air and wanders nearer. Seven feet tall and emaciated, it looks like the corpse of a man half-beast, with the flesh of its lower face hanging in gored ribbons to expose its yellowed and rotting teeth.

Sam steps back. “Is that a- Dean, is that a Wendigo?” It looks less human than any wendigo they've ever encountered.

“I don't know. Fuck. I don't know,” Dean replies, short of breath. The Wendigo turns its milky eyes towards them, fleshy face splitting open as it lets out a scream and jumps on the fence. Sam and Dean back-pedal, but there's a flash of blinding white light in the instant it touches the barrier, the Wendigo's vicious screams turning to those of pain. It falls back to the broken ground beyond the fence, the corpse grey skin of its naked clawed hands and feet seared black, as though burnt, and oozing thick blood from the holes the barbs have made. It screams once more and scrabbles back off into the fog.

Sam lets go of Dean's sleeve, which he had unconsciously grabbed. “What the hell is going on?”

“Oh, he doesn't know. Should we tell him?”

Sam and Dean whip around, startled. Castiel has a wide smile etched across his face, but his eyes are so dilated, so empty that the blue is barely a sliver around the edge of huge pupils. “No, let him tell them,” Castiel answers himself. “I like watching them squirm.” The smile goes slack and Castiel looks at them, confused. He begins to clutch his head. “No, no, no, get out.” Castiel's hands claw at his face, and he bends at the middle, face to the ground. “Get out, get out of me!” He begins to laugh. “This place – haha – was so hollow,” Castiel says, sounding like each word is grinding out, forced, between his teeth. “It makes it so easy to- no, no, no- to open a door. But now it is closed – Get out! G—uhaha. There is no way back.”

“What are you talking about?” Dean asks, hand slipping towards the handle of the colt in his belt.

Castiel doesn't look up. There's blood like tar beginning to drip beneath his fingers and onto the road, where it bubbles like acid. “They've come back!” Castiel shouts, and for the first time in a long time, he sounds like himself. Two great shadows fan out behind Castiel's bent back, no longer invisible shadows as they had always appeared, but fully formed in huge black feathers, badly crooked and falling out in clumps. The same tar drips off the tips in waves and scorches the earth below his feet. Twitching, Castiel stands up slowly, black blood oozing over his lips and from the corners of his eyes. He laughs again, stonger. “The Leviathans have broken open Purgatory. And they've come for _yoooou_.”

Sam's back is practically against the corrugated fence and his breathing is shallow and fast. “ _Purgatory?_ ” He gasps. “That's impossible.”

“You bastards,” Dean groans pulling the colt out of his belt and aiming it level at Castiel's forehead. “You sons of bitches. How long have you been –” Dean grits his teeth, eyes narrowed with agony. “Get out of him right now.”

Castiel's only reaction is to tilt his head, ever so slightly, teeth bared. “Are you going to shoot him? Kill your sweet little piece?”

“The colt won't kill angels.” Dean fakes a smile, desperately fingers the trigger.

“After all the nibbling we've done, how much of an angel do you think is left? Enough to survive?” The thing wearing Castiel's skin shrugs. “Worth it just to test if it will kill us?”

Dean grimaces, and doesn't lower the gun, though his fingers go slack. “Why don't you just kill us then?” he demands, voice thick.

Castiel smiles. “You needed to be punished first. Your little _friend_ tried so hard to hold us back, but it's all worked out in the end, hasn't it now? Remember our mother when you die, Winchesters.” A gust of wind causes the thing's wings to shudder, flinging black blood to the ground and his expression darkens as he looks at the great winged tower before them in the fog. “You dare to interfere?” The wind grows strong enough that it nearly knocks the brothers off their feet, though Castiel barely budges. “No matter! You won't last forever, little one.” He turns his eyes to Sam, then Dean. “And neither will they.”

In total silence, Castiel disappears, leaving nothing but bubbling pavement behind him.

 


	5. IV

 

[ ](http://weareallpuppets.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/978/35081)

  


It's four a.m. when Bobby's phone goes off.

Bobby's in a deep sleep, helped along by a bottle of Jack, but even he can't ignore when Jody sleepily stumbles in and shakes him. “Bobby, yer message box has been going off for ten minutes.” Eventually, Bobby rolls unceremoniously out of bed, tripping on the bedroom mat and out into the hallway.

“– ou have, _twenty_ -two, new messages: _Beep_. Bobby— _kkzzch_ —help— _chh_ —Cas is— _zzzck_. End of Message. You have, _twenty_ -three, new messages: _Beep_. Bobby—please!— _kkzz_ —Leviath— _bzzzzzzzzz_. End of Message. You have, _twenty_ -four, new messages: _Beep_. _Tzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzch_. End of Message. You have, _no_ , new messages.”

Bobby pushes the replay button with a trembling hand.

“You have, _no_ , new messages.” Again. “You have, _no_ , new messages.”

“Balls.”

Jody pulls at her t-shirt pajama top. “Jesus. They've only been gone three days.” In the moonlight filtering in through the cabin windows, she looks ghastly pale. “What are we going to do?”

The first thing Bobby does is to call every single phone the Winchesters should have on them. They all go straight to voicemail, and he leaves a useless message on every one.

The next thing he does is to call an angel.

“I pray to.. ah, Inias was it?” Bobby says uncertainly, crossing his arms. He's still in his flannel sleepwear, though he's put his cap on. “We're in need of some angel wisdom, and I may be as stubborn as an ass, but even I'm not as stubborn as Dean Winchester. So if you'll come here we'll be eternally grateful and all that. Just Inias though, none of your siblings, _please_.” Jody lets out a snicker she's been holding in beneath her breath. “Shut it.”

“Bobby Singer.” The angel appears behind them, making both people jump. He's dressed in a male vessel, tall and thin, with deep rings around his eyes and shabby jeans and sneakers. “I had lost hope of locating you- Castiel hid you well.” He eyes the sigil freshly drawn on the wall, Jody standing near with her hand raised and poised. “You don't need to fear me. I really have no desire to be banished again. It is very unpleasant.”

“Sorry if I'm not the most trusting old bastard in the world,” Bobby says, shrugging. “But we've been screwed by the angels before.” Inias nods, lips pursed.

Jody whistles, not dropping her hand from its wary position near the sigil. “A real live, juiced up angel. I admit, I was beginning to think you boys were lying about them.”

Inias gives a curt nod in Jody's direction. “Very live, Ms. Mills.”

“And he knows my name!” Inias gazes at her confusedly, but she only laughs.

“So, the prophet’s not good enough a vessel for you?” Bobby asks.

The angel looks at their attire. “Strictly speaking, I should never have done that. Were heaven the way it had been, I would have been severely punished. But the prophet is safe now.”

“Safe like the last one?”

Inias flinches, almost imperceptibly. “There are those of us who theorize that... higher forces may be at work there, much like in Castiel's continued resurrection. Regardless, we have protected Daphne Allen and all of the potential prophets, and I have taken a different vessel, one of the bloodline suitable for me.” Inias delicately picks at their band t-shirt. “He... was a musician.”

“Was?” Jody asks. She looks at him with a hard edge sneaking into her expression. “You don't kill your vessels, do you?”

“No, no-” He says holding up his hands peacefully. “Not if we take a vessel that suits us, no. My vessel... when I came to him, he said he was tired and he gave me consent, but requested that I first... 'drop him off' in heaven. We're not supposed to inhabit an empty vessel, but times being what they are...” He mimics Bobby's shrug. “It's a very interesting feeling. A vessel of your own is very... itchy. There's so much sensation, how do you stand it?”

“A lot of us can't. 'S why there's so many people chasing the idea of things like you, and so many drunks.” Bobby sighs. “Listen, kid, we need you to tell us everything you know about the Leviathans, and fast. Sam, Dean, and Castiel are missing, and those bastards have something to do with it.”

“I am not a kid,” Inias replies, frowning quietly. “Castiel is missing?”

“Yeah, since I guess less than a couple days ago. He, uh, suffered a kind of psychotic break I s'pose. Scribbled on a bunch of maps while out of his mind on painkillers and drink. The three of them drove off, chasing what we thought was probably nothing, or at least nothing they couldn't get out of.”

Inias frowns. “That sounds like a trap.”

“Yeah, well our boys have something of a habit of walking right into them. They're cocky.” Jody gives Bobby a pointed look. She finally lowers her hand, slowly approaching Inias.

“Yeah, yeah,” Bobby says. “Now, what can you tell us about these leeches?”

“Not too much more than you might know, I fear. Even the angels do not really remember them, for they came and went before most of us,” Inias admits quietly. “They are ancient. And they are monsters, the first and only collaboration between God and Eve.”

“ _Eve_? As in the mother of all monsters?”

“Yes, her. It's... more of a legend amongst most angels really. Many do not believe it, but I think...” the words sound new and unsure in his mouth. “ _I_ think that our father and Eve shared similar designs, in the beginning.” Inias grimaces and covers his mouth. “I'm sorry, that was blasphemous.”

“No need to worry about that here.” Bobby runs a hand over his cap. “So how do we kill them?”

“We cannot.”

“What do you mean?” Jody asks tersely.

“I mean we cannot kill them, not in any way that I know. It was foretold that the wrath of the Gabriel and Michael would destroy them, but...”

“Can't we call either of them up?” Jody asks, putting her hands on her hips.

“One's dead and the other's locked up down below with their meanest brother. Gabriel was on our side at the end, but... you know how it goes for the people on our team,” Bobby explains.

Jody turns wide eyes at Bobby. “Dead archangels. Huh. One of these days I need you guys to tell me the full story. After the world stops trying to end and all.”

“There may be something...” Inias says quietly. “The prophecy, as it was told in heaven, goes as thus: ' _And Gabriel's Horn shall ring throughout earth and the heavens and all the dark places, and Michael's sword shall fall to smite the first beasts, driving them back into the holes from whence they came forever more._ '”

“Yeah, sounds like typical prophecy junk,” Bobby says.

Inias nods. “But I think it may not be so simple. If I have discovered one thing, it is my Father's love of twisted words.” He frowns again, but doesn't comment on his blasphemy. “None of us questioned that it simply meant Gabriel and Michael taking down the leviathans. But now, I am not so sure.”

“You think it's the weapons?” Bobby says critically, before he shrugs. “Hell, we've worked on flimsier theories.”

Jody's face brightens. “Great. Where can we find them?”

“The horn has been lost since Gabriel fled heaven a millennia ago, and Michael's sword... well he is lost, obviously.”

“He?”

“Dean Winchester.” Inias says, looking incredulous.

“Oh yeah, forgot about that. No chance of Michael's sword bein' his actual sword, if this stupid theory'a yours ain't just a waste of time?”

"Michael's sword was no different from any other archangel's blade. Besides, he preferred the staff."

“So we just need to find a long lost musical instrument, that may be just be a stupid damn hope anyways, all while hoping Dean isn't dead yet so he can... what, angst the leviathans back to death? Great. Easy. Typical apocalypse junk.” Bobby scrubs a hand over his face, other hand scrabbling for an open bottle of whiskey set on the nearby desk. Jody gets to it first, and takes a long pull.

 

[ ](http://weareallpuppets.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/978/35550)

Dean wipes blood off his face. “Ugly son of a bitch.”

It doesn't do much, not even beginning to cut through the dirt caked on, black smears of ash running over every inch of his body and mixed with stale sweat. His hair is flat, plastered to his forehead.

It's been nearly a week since they've been trapped.

Sam, rests, panting in the shadow of a crooked, burnt out bar. They'd been scavenging for food, but all they had found was more ash.

Most of the buildings were like that, ruined shells scattered haphazardly throughout the fog. They had discovered on the very first day that if they stepped out side, if they left their shelter, they would never find that place again. And it could be a long walk between safe places. Some of the places were achingly familiar, near perfect replicas of places they'd seen before, places they'd lived, places they'd died, though some barely looked like real buildings.

Sam shudders, keeping the colt at the ready. “I've never seen one... like that.”

“I don't think there was even a speck of human left in it,” Dean says. He looks around him.

“That...” Sam breathes, lungs burning horribly in his chest. “That Wendigo, if that's what it was... couldn't get past the... fence, so where are these coming from?” He gestures to the carcass of what they _assume_ is a dead werewolf, fully transformed and bleeding sluggishly on the cracked pavement from a hole in its head. Sam's stomach aches pitifully, though it's undecided on whether it is due to nausea or hunger.

“Dunno,” Dean replies. “Nothing makes a lick of sense about this place.”

Sam curls in on himself, hugging his long legs. “We're almost out of bullets.”

Dean sighs, and crouches with his brother, their knees knocking together. “We're gonna have to find or make some sorta weapons. Can't kill anything with our good looks, yeah?” Dean attempts to smile, but Sam isn't looking at him. His eyes are unfocused, his jaw working furiously and his trembling hands fisting in the legs of his jeans. Dean leans forward and pats the sides of Sam's face. “Hey, Sammy.”

Sam's eyes dart to Dean, barely controlled terror itching across his features. “Please, not him,” he begs quietly. “Don't use his face, _please_.”

Dean's smile becomes heavy, but he merely shifts closer and smoothes Sam's dirty hair behind his ears, sadly. “It's me. It's _me_ , Sam. I need you to come back to the real world. I know it's shit, I _know_. But I need you here, with me, now.”

Sam shudders and leans into Dean's hands, eyes drifting closed. “You're not Lucifer.”

“No way, dude. Way better lookin'.”

Sam breathes deep. It's quiet for a long moment and Sam's hands cup Dean's shoulders, squeezing tight to reaffirm Dean is real. “They're getting worse.”

“I see that,” Dean replies. “Don't worry. We're gonna find a way out of this mess. We're gonna get Cas back and we're gonna fight our way out, if we have to. Not like it’s nothing we haven’t done before.”

Sam’s eyes flicker out to the open streets. “I see him,” Sam says. “Cas. He watches us a lot.”

Dean's mouth twitches. “Yeah. I see him too.”

Sam takes another minute to sort out his breathing, and Dean eventually parts from him, standing and stretching his aching legs. “C'mon,” he says. “Let's find somewhere for the night. We don't want to get caught out here when it gets dark.” Dean offers him a hand up.

Sam doesn't move. “Dean.”

“Yeah?”

“Dean, is this real?”

“Whu-” Dean follows Sam's gaze and recoils. The mess of the dead werewolf's head is pulsating, moving slowly, its one remaining eye open and pinpointed on them. Snarling with a half of a jaw, it’s crawling slowly but surely towards Sam, great claws renting the street beneath it. “Definitely-really-real!” He gasps. “ _Move_!” Dean pulls Sam out of the way, both of them tumbling to the concrete, just as its claws take a great swipe at where Sam had been. The wolf's head is slowly piecing back together, reversing, rebuilding brain matter first, then bone, muscle. “Run!” Dean shouts, as he pulls Sam to his feet. The fog is clearing, replaced by the complete and utter dark.

They've waited too long. Night is falling around them.

The werewolf runs much faster than they do once its cerebral integrity has been restored. It howls and bounds after them, claws ripping up the asphalt as it chases them through the dark. It’s nearly pitch black, and the batteries in their flashlights wore out two nights ago.

Sam screams in pain and Dean can just barely make out his form pressed against the ground. The werewolf is crouched over him, jaws glistening with saliva. The scent of blood wafts over to Dean. “No, Sam!” He levels the colt with the werewolf’s head and the last bullet takes off its jaw entirely.

The werewolf barely acknowledges it. That is the way of night in purgatory. It pauses just long enough for Dean to dart forward and drag Sam to him, though he knows they can't move in time. Warm blood coats Dean's hands as he cradles Sam close and waits for the blow.

 

[ ](http://weareallpuppets.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/978/35550)

“So what's the chance of this actually working?”

“With what the boys told me about their previous encounter? Not much.” Bobby shrugs and lays down an arrangement of red hibiscus flowers and a chalice of honey. Jody lights some sickly smelling jasmine incense.

“I do not think she will be willing to help if I am here,” Inias says quietly as Bobby begins to mutter beneath his breath.

“You're probably right,” a voice behind him rings. The woman saunters up behind him, slender hands itching as though wishing to snap the angel's neck. Two streams of fire decorate her arms and a belt of miniscule silver skulls dangles around her the waist of her pencil skirt. “What gall would bring two humans and a low level angel to summon me?”

Inias rubs his skinny hands together, eying her nervously. “Goddess Kali,” he begins, slowly, “We beg you for your help and thrust ourselves upon your mercy.”

Kali eyes him, striding around him with powerful steps. “You're being quite respectful, for one of God's lackeys.” Fire dances out of her fingertips and up her arms, and in the shadow of the flames, she has six. A lit fingertip touches Inias's throat, but he does not move, but for a slight flinch.

“I've got to say,” Jody says, smiling nervously. “You've always been my favourite goddess.”

Kali removes her hands from Inias's throat and shoots her an actual smile. “I'm listening, but not for long. And don't think to pull any tricks on me. I've experienced enough by your kind.”

“That's what we wanted to ask you about, actually.” Bobby says, scratching his beard. “Dean told me a little- told me you and Gabriel were close.”

“I did not even know who he was,” Kali replies scathingly. “He lied his way into my confidences. I only ever knew him as Loki.” The hibiscus flowers catch fire and wither.

“I know, I know, don't get yer skulls in a bunch,” Bobby says. The room is beginning to feel dangerously hot.

“What Bobby means,” Jody says, sending him a glare. “Is that we need to know if you have any clue where Gabriel might have stashed his horn of truth.”

“You think he told me anything?” Kali scoffs. “What would you need it for?”

“It may be the only way to defeat this world's current threat.” Inias says quietly.

Kali crosses her arms, the flames falling. “Those black, gooey _beasts_...”

“The Leviathans, yes.”

“So they're one of your father's creations, I should have known. They've spread all the way to my corner of the world.” she says viciously. “They're _eating_ my people.”

“And we're trying to stop them,” Jody says, “So if you know anything, anything at all, please help us.”

Kali sends a look of such hatred Inias's way that he takes a step back, though he does no more than that, standing as proudly and tall as he can before one of the most powerful beings on the planet. She may be several inches shorter, but she dwarfs him. “Your brother left something for me. After the Winchesters and I escaped,” she frowns angrily fists clenching. “After we ran like cowards before a petulant _child_ with too much power. I found _this_ at my temple in Bengal.” She holds up a hand, with a DVD clutched tightly between her fingers. Bobby breaks out into actual laughter.

“Casa Erotica 14?” Jody asks incredulously.

“Is this is a joke?” Inias asks.

Bobby takes a moment to control his laughter. “Nope. He gave number 13 to Dean and Sam, when he told us how to throw Lucifer in the cage. Never was so confused as when they popped _that_ on for me.” Jody looks at Bobby like he's gone crazy. Bobby composes himself. “So what did it say?”

Kali averts her eyes. “Many things for my ears only, but he also said that one day Sam and Dean or someone associated with them would likely come looking for me, because of him, and that I was to tell you three things; Firstly, that if you ever come after me again, I had permission to kill you, not that I needed such a thing. Secondly, that the thing you seek from him he buried beneath the branches of a long gone world tree. And lastly, that you've had the other thing you seek all along.”

Agitation itches through Inias's expression. “But what did he mean?”

Kali shrugs. “Not a clue. Heed your messages.” In a flash of flame, she disappears.

 

[ ](http://weareallpuppets.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/978/35550)

When Dean opens his eyes, the first thing he realizes is that he is not dead, followed immediately by the realization that Sam may soon be. His thigh is bleeding profusely out onto concrete below him and he is gasping weakly. There is no sign of the werewolf.

“Sammy, you're okay Sammy,” Dean whispers beneath his breath, barely sparing a second glance to the missing beast. He puts pressure on the wound, deep ragged claw marks renting down the length of Sam's upper leg. The darkness settles around them, thick and impenetrable. No natural night has ever been so pitch black, and utterly lightless.

“No,” grunts a familiar voice from the shadows. He's been following them for days, never coming close enough to shoot, but always watching from the background, enjoying the show, as it were. “We're running this show. You don't get to interfere little morsel.” It sounds pained, like it's struggling to keep breathing. A long shallow hiss escapes between pressed lips and then is gone.

Dean hadn't managed to hold onto the duffel bag when they fled the wolf, so he throws off his jacket and pulls off his grimy shirt. It's not clean, but he tears it into strips anyway, laying them over the wound until it creates a thick pad that clings readily to Sam's sticky blood. With the dark comes the night's cold, so both Sam and Dean shiver, but the blood flow is slowing, and eventually stops and Sam breathes on.

They need to move. They've been lucky, run across scant few monsters, but they're sitting ducks out in the dark. Dean can't manage to bring them to their feet.

“Dean,” Sam says weakly. “I'm okay.”

Dean forgoes all machismo and pulls Sam full into his arms, hands fisting in the back of Sam's coat.

“Gross. You're getting your boobs on me,” Sam manages weakly. Dean can feel him smiling against his cheek.

“Yeah, closest to boobs you've been, I bet,” Dean says, releasing Sam and zipping up his coat over his bare chest. He clamors into a ready crouch. “You're not gonna pass out on me if we get moving, are you?”

Sam shakes his head, before realizing it's too dark for him to be seen. “No. Gotten clawed worse than this.” He replaces Dean's hand with his own to keep pressure on the wound, and their fingertips brush together. Dean springs to his feet, before gathering Sam's free arm and pulling him into his support. Sam leans into the crook of Dean's arm, and they wander off, aimless – it's far too dark to see.

After a few minutes, Sam starts to lag, dizzy and stumbling often. “So, uh, what do you think the whole werewolf disappearing thing was about?” Dean asks, giving Sam a little shake.

“Dunno,” Sam says, sounding sleepy. “But didn't you hear it? It sounded like that wasn't supposed to happen.”

“You think...”

“I think Cas really is still in there, yeah.”

They walk on in silence, until they come across a shack about an hour later, almost missing it in the night but for the fact that they actually walked right into it. They have to feel their way to the door. It's no lighter inside than outside in the darkness, so Dean sits up vigilantly, guarding the door with nothing more than Ruby's knife and the empty colt in his belt while Sam sleeps off the blood loss.

With morning, comes the return of the dark grey fog and Dean finally sees the place they've holed up in – a shabby wooden building Dean remembers, even though it's a piece of Sam's past.

Sam grimaces when he awakens and gets a good look at his surroundings. Lucifer giggles in the back of his mind, his face swims with the images of other special children, just as scared as he had once been. He doesn't make them flesh, but Lucifer's grin on Andy's face is enough.

Dean brushes off Sam's insistence that he rest – he's too hungry and Sam is too. They hadn't managed to find anything before getting attacked. More than that, they're dreadfully thirsty. They take off into the fog, limping and supporting in turn, gladly leaving that particular memory behind.

Dean shivers with nothing but his coat and they press a little tighter together. By the middle of the day, Sam's steps begin once more to stumble. “Dean, I haven't had a drink in a day.”

“I know, Sam,” Dean says, pulling Sam a little closer. His stomach groans and he swears he can practically feel the blood pulsing beneath Sam's neck. He feels a surge of hunger thrum through him, and shudders.

“Do you think we could eat monsters?” Sam asks.

“Do you think it would be a good idea?” Dean counters.

“Better than starving.”

“Mm, yeah, how much meat do ya think we could get off a wendigo?”

Sam's stomach churns. “Yeah, okay maybe not.”

They walk for the rest of the day, but find nothing.


	6. V

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ ](http://weareallpuppets.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/978/35815)

  


 

They're sitting around the table in Rufus's cabin, and all three of them have a beer. Inias pulls a jacket around himself tightly, his excuse that he feels more while alone in a vessel.

“What're the odds of him playing one last trick? It's suspicious.” Jody asks. As soon as Inias had zapped them back into the cabin, she'd made Bobby sit down and tell them about his encounter with Gabriel as a trickster, and then what Sam and Dean had told him about their later encounters. “What I heard, it sounds like his MO.”

“Gabriel was always light hearted,” Inias puts in, shocked by the tales of Gabriel's cruelty. “He would hide many things from the younger members of the garrison, but he never harmed us.”

“Yeah, just humans.”

Inias takes a sip of his beer and sneers just a little at the taste. “I do not think he was lying this time. This is the world at stake, and he chose the world, in the end.”

“So what do you think he meant by the 'world tree'?” Jody asks.

“That's relatively easy – She, Kali, knew him as Loki, right? That's Norse mythology. Their trickster god. The World Tree is kinda like their universe theory, if I remember correctly – brushed up on some mythology after we ran into a few gods over the years, never hurts to be prepared,” Bobby says gruffly. “But actually finding the tree that contains the universe, a _long gone_ one at that, I have no idea how in the hell we're gonna do that, seein' as it makes no sense.”

“A tree does not contain the universe. That would be impos–” Inias begins.

“Yeah, I _know_. So what was he talkin' about?”

“Maybe,” Jody says, cupping her hands beneath her chin. “it's a bit more simple than that. Like it was a place, or a painting, or a I-don't-know-what. Could be a pub in Norway. I think it's wortha shot.”

Bobby sighs. “This whole operation seems to be runnin' on hints and maybes. Fine. Let's hit the books.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ ](http://weareallpuppets.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/978/36836)

It's the third day without water and Sam can't walk a foot further. They're out in the open, exposed to the cold and the ash, but he can't move.

“Sam, c'mon. Gotta get up,” Dean begs weakly, his lips cracked and bloodless, skin stretched tight.

“I'm so tired,” Sam mumbles, clutching onto Dean's jacket. The skin of his leg is hot and red around the claw marks, but they have nothing to clean it with.

“Yeah, I know. I know. Me too. But we gotta find water.”

“There is no water,” Sam says, his voice terribly clear. “Dean, please, just...” Sam pulls Dean closer, burying his nose into the crook of his dirty neck.

“No,” Dean says, “Fuck _this_.” He stands, pulling the knife from his belt with a scraped and clenched fist. “You sons of bitches!” He screams into the fog. “I'm done. We're done. So come and fucking get me!"

They haven't dared to raise their voices for the time they've been there. The monsters that had slipped into their piece of the world would find them whenever they did, but now Dean welcomed them. Sam lies sprawled on the ground, eyes unfocused.

“Come here, come meet me, you stupid fucking bastard. You want us dead, so what are you waiting for?”

“Still waiting for you to remember our Mother,” comes Castiel's voice from just beyond Dean's realm of vision.

“I don't give a shit about your mother!” Dean shouts, not daring to step away from in front of Sam's weak form.

“Tsk,” says Castiel's voice. “Temper.” Castiel emerges from the shadows, dressed as Castiel had always been as an angel, askew tie flapping despite the lack of breeze. Black blood creates a sizzling trail behind him, and Dean's dehydrated knees shake.

“Ugly as you are, I'd say your mother was blind.”

The leviathans in Castiel's body shrug. “Both God and Eve created things of beauty. It's just a matter of _perspective_ , little boy. Look, we find you _hideous_ – piteous. God was mistaken when it came to his little ants. Oh, but, _angels_.” The thing runs its hands over Castiel's chest. “Pretty little, tasty little _angels_.”

“Eve? Eve was your mother?” Dean laughs, half maddened. “Eve went down easier than your average monster,” Dean says, laughing and then coughing on his dry mouth. “If that's all I got to expect, you worms will be so much easier.”

The leviathans sneered. “We know you, Winchesters. We know you how to ruin you. We know you through each and every thing you've killed, because you've sent them all to _us_ , and they are all outside, waiting for their pound of your flesh.” A howl sounds nearby. “Here is one now! Do you think your little brother can withstand it, do you think your little Sam can even –” The leviathan chokes on their words. Their eyes go wide, the pupils shrinking, blue once more showing in the outline of their eyes. “No, you don't, little morsel. No, no. No saving them this time, you and your kin have interfered enough.”

Dean watches the leviathans carefully. They shudder and twitch, hands clawing at Castiel's neck. “Cas?”

Sam stirs just so behind Dean, though he sounds as if he's dreaming. “Cas is here?”

They go ignored. “Do you think you can beat us little one? Michael is gone, Gabriel is dead, no Michael sword to beat us down. You're just their weak, tasty little brother.”

“Cas!” Dean shouts.

Castiel shudders and his eyes meet Dean's, striking and clear, clear blue. He stretches out a tar covered hand. “Dean. Sam.” His hand stretches to the sky and, in a muffled rustle of feathers, he vanishes.

“No!” Dean screams. “Goddamnit, Cas, get your ass back here!” The wind whistles once, but Castiel does not reappear.

“Dean,” Sam moans from behind him. His eyes are closed, his long limbs folded against his body. “Water.”

Dean slowly walks over to and kneels with his brother, face scrunched with pain. He rubs a filthy hand over his exhausted eyes and coughs with his bone dry throat. “I know, Sammy, I know, you're gonna... you're gonna get some water soon.”

“No, Dean,” Sam mumbles. His eyes open, a little clearer than they were before. “Rainin'.”

Small sprinkles alight on Sam's upturned face, trailing over his cheeks and dotting his hair like dew. Dean looks up, disbelieving, and laughs, loud, honest to god, _laughs_. He removes his leather jacket and holds it up to the sky to collect the water, not even minding the freezing cold that bites at his bare chest. “Oh my God, that– That glorious son of a bitch. Sam, open your mouth.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ ](http://weareallpuppets.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/978/36836)

“I bet he thought he was being clever,” Bobby snipped on the second day. “If we didn't already know Dean was Michael's sword, that last hint would have been infuriatin'. As it is with the tree thing I want to bring him back, just so I can kill him myself.”

Inias scowls at him, thick brows furrowed. “We have leads at least.”

“Only about five hundred. Sacred goddamned Norse trees.”

“And how is Dean supposed to slay the beast when we have no clue where he's trapped, and if he's even alive still?” Jody asks. Lines from the sleepless nights are beginning to creep around her eyes.

“Oh, he's alive.” Bobby says firmly. “Not much seems to be able to keep these boys dead. The problem is timing. Communication. A bunch of junk, but I have no doubt they're still kickin'.”

Jody shrugs. “If only the rest of us were so lucky.”

“If we just had a tighter location,” Inias laments. “I could search easily. The horn emits a tone that only angels can hear- I have not heard it for a millenia, but I could never forget it.”

“And Europe is too wide a swath for ya?” Bobby asks.

Inias nods silently. “I am nowhere near as fast as many of my siblings, not even as swift as my sister Hester, who is of the same rank.” Inias scratches his face, shamefaced. “And slower now, I think. Heaven's power is fading. In me... and in the garrison.” Bobby pats him slowly, consoling.

“But a city is not too wide right?” Jody says, looking at her laptop with a grin.

Inias shakes his head.

“Gabriel seems like the kind to not just want some random little sacred tree. But ones renowned for their beauty, remembered even now that they're 'long gone', those sound about right, yeah?” Inias leans over and Jody smiles wide. “Uppsala or Hesse?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ ](http://weareallpuppets.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/978/36836)

The rain pours on for four days and four nights. There's no lack for water, no more of the deadly thirst, but the hunger becomes ever present, something gnawing on the half dead grass that grows between the ash ridden cracks of the waste does not ease. Sam's cut gets cleaned, but the skin is still red and unhappy, and constant shivers plague them both when the rain threatens to turn sleet. They find a burnt out old yellow house to take refuge in on the third day. Sam doesn't remember it, he's only seen the house after it had been rebuilt, but Dean remembers his first four years there. He doesn't tell Sam.

There's some dirty, but whole clothes scattered in the unruined rooms, with which Dean gladly layers after days with nothing but his jacket to keep out the biting cold. Sam replaces his blood stained jeans with a pair just a bit too short and binds his leg with fabric from a woman's night dress. They find unspoiled canned goods in the kitchen, and celebrate with peaches and green beans and Dean almost smiles when he wipes away fruit juice from Sam's upper lip.

“We need a plan,” Sam says, voice stronger than it's been for some time. He digs into a can of beans they'd been planning to save, but Dean doesn't stop him. “We can't just wander around in the dark, hoping for Cas to overpower the leviathans long enough to save our asses again. We almost died, and you know, I don't think we can get out of it, this time. _We_ have to save _him_.”

Dean nods, lacing his fingers before his mouth. “You... were right. Cas is still in there somewhere. With a bit more digging, we can get all the way down to him. And with the three of us, there's no way we won't bust out of here.” The cockiness in Dean's voice is forced, but less than before.

“Dean,” Sam replies slowly, “I have no doubt about you and Cas, but, you have to look at the facts.”

“No. Don't even start.”

“Dean, _listen_. Do you think I _want_ – I'm...” He exhales. “My hallucinations are getting _worse_. Worse than they already were. That I'm even lucid right now is...” he says, trailing off. “And don't try to pretend you think my leg is fine. I'm a risk to you, Dean.”

“A risk I'm willing to take.” Dean says stonily.

Sam stares at Dean for a long moment, before his eyes slide down and linger on Dean's lips. “And if I get us _all_ killed?”

“Then we go out together. Okay?”

Sam swallows, scooting the half eaten can of beans over to Dean. “Okay.”

“ _Okay_. We leave as soon as the rain stops, and we find our angel.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ ](http://weareallpuppets.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/978/36836)

“An empty goddamned field,” Bobby snips.

“It's here,” Inias insists. “I'd know that sound anywhere.”

“According to the site I found, there used to be a temple here, and the tree was famous for leagues around. Sacrifices in the big numbers. Sounded like this guy's deal.” Jody shrugged and pushed her hair behind her ear, then rubbing her hands together and blowing on them. “Can we get the horn and go? Sweden is pretty damn cold in October.”

Inias stalked quickly up the nearest hill, hopping over a little wooden fence. A man from the little house across the tiny dirt road eyed them suspiciously. “Close by, closer,” he muttered to himself. “Here!” Inias holds out a hand and in a moment an old battered horn appears in his fist.

“ _That's_ the horn of truth?” Jody laughs. It looks to be about the size of a child's horn, and it's rusted.

“As it appears to your eyes, yes,” Inias retorts, blue eyes narrowing.

“How sure are you?” Bobby asks. “Cause we need to be sure.”

Inias raises an eyebrow, then puts the horn to his lips. It emits a tinny squeak.

Jody laughs. “Okay, so what did it do?”

“How do you feel about Bobby?” Inias asks, almost smug looking.

“I like you quite a bit,” Jody says, then squeaks and covers her mouth. “I thought you were an old drunk for a long time, but you're really pretty charming,” she says to Bobby, more muffled this time.

Bobby scratches the back of his head, before his mouth starts to babble as well. “I like you, because you don't put up with my bullshit.” Bobby goes red in the face. “Alright, angel, put the damn thing away.”

Inias watches with a small smirk. Bobby and Jody are flush with the cold and Jody pulls her leather jacket tighter around herself.

“If we survive this leviathan thing, I'm gonna take you out for dinner, alright?” Jody says, with a sheepish smile.

“Sure,” Bobby replies, eyebrows furrowed.

“I think the two of you are alright, for humans,” Inias says. matter-of-factly. He tucks the horn into the pocket of his jeans, takes their hands, and zaps them back to Rufus's cabin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ ](http://weareallpuppets.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/978/36836)

Their childhood home holds more usable things than any building they've stumbled across. Food, clothes, they even manage to make a pair of rucksacks, from on old half burned leather jacket and collect rain water in tupperware containers salvaged from the kitchen. Sam wonders aloud why the place is so much better preserved than any others, and Dean wonders if ghosts too go to Purgatory.

When the first deluge of rain stops, they take to the streets, deadly quiet and cautious, but occasionally daring to call out Castiel's name. The only answer is usually in howls, and they hurry on silently for some time afterward.

The rain comes and goes after that, as do Sam's hallucinations. His limp is getting severe, and there's a terrible smell emitting from the bandages on his thigh, no matter how much Dean tries to clean them with alcohol salvaged from the house they’d crouched in. By the third day of such travel, Dean has to carry Sam more often than he can keep himself up.

Flickers of Castiel appear in the corners of their eyes, sometimes, but no matter how they follow him, they’re always one step behind. Sam sees him more often than Dean, though they’re unsure whether he’s actually seeing him or not. His hallucinations have gotten bad enough that he spends half of the fourth day screaming. Dean manages to fight off some piss poor vamps, as starved and inhuman looking as everything in purgatory, with the weapons they had fashioned out of hard steel pipes and kitchen knives, until Sam regains himself.

“You’re fine, see, like I’ve been tellin’ you, you’re fine.” Sam cringes away from Dean’s unintended harsh tone. Dean wipes the vamp blood from his blades, content that their headless corpses will stay corpses until nightfall.

“Sorry.”

“What was it this time?”

Sam mutters something indistinct, and buries his head miserably in his hands. “I don’t know how long I can do this.”

“C’mon. It won’t be too much longer. Cas, Cas is fighting in there. You've gotta fight too. Soon, we’re gonna get him and get out and the lot of us are gonna kick another apocalypse's ass."

“Dean, I just almost you killed!”

“Yeah, well, you’re all I got.”

“You’d be better off leaving me here. You can find Cas, and then the two of you—”

“I don’t wanna hear this.”

“But you've got to face the truth, sometime. My head, my leg- I’m as good as dead.”

“Oh, screw you. You're gonna get us killed because you gave up, not because Lucifer's screwin' with your head.” Dean turns away, running a hand over his face, perfectly content to start ignoring his brother, but a howl sounds nearby, far too close.

“That doesn't sound like a wolf…” Sam whispers.

The howls sound more like those of a pack of dogs, approaching through the dust and dark. “Shit,” Dean says, angling back his piece of pipe, preparing to fight. “We’ll talk about this later,” he hisses. A great hunched beast emerges into view, followed by another, and another, standing as tall as Dean's chest even on all fours. Vaguely dog like in shaped, their hulking chests taper into starved corpse thin middles, with claws as long as Sam's fingers and corded exposed muscles unprotected by the torn flesh hanging in strips off their forms. Rusted nails peek out of their marred and matter fur.

Dean visibly goes several shades lighter, and his hand drops.

“What _are_ those?” Sam asks, backing up as quickly as his mangled leg will allow, his broken steel bar still raised and ready. The nearest thing snarls, blood red eyes fixed on him. “Dean, I've never seen those before.”

“I have,” Dean chokes out. “Run!”

He grabs Sam's hand, dragging him at a pace he can't match, though Sam keeps on his feet even as blood begins to pump through his bandages. The first beast catches up with them and Dean turns while still running to deliver a powerful crack to its skull. It whimpers with pain and falls to the ground and Sam remembers where he has heard that sort of growling before.

“Are – those – gah – hell hounds?!” Dean's pale face is answer enough. They're gaining a small lead, but not for long. They turn the corner and without warning Dean drags him out of sight into a burnt out hardware store, pressing him hard against the wall, with his body hovering over him and a grimy hand covering his mouth. The smell of smoke and burnt flesh is nearly overpowering, and Sam and Dean barely breathe. Within seconds the hell hounds pass by, seemingly without smelling them, but they don't dare to move until their barking fades into the distance.

“Oh my God,” Dean finally says. “Those are some bastards I never wanna play with again.” He releases Sam's mouth, and they cough from the scent. “Ugh, it smells terrible in – ” Dean cuts off abruptly. “Jesus Christ. Let's get out of here.” They've unwittingly stumbled into a place from their past once more. Nails litter what remains of the walls much like they had stuck out of the hell hounds' flesh.

“This is where…” Sam covers his mouth. He closes his eyes, groaning.

“C'mon," Dean says, gathering their makeshift rucksacks. "Let's get before those hounds come back around.”

Sam opens his eyes, and then shouts. “Dean, behind you!”

“Wha-” In a flash, the hell hound drags its claws down the back of Dean's legs before he can even turn around. He falls to his knees and the hound slices at his back until he's flat on the ground, screaming. Blood oozes and spurts from the rents in his body, hands outstretched towards Sam. “Sammy!” He screams. The hell hound takes a bite out of the flesh of Dean's back, chewing, swallowing. “Sammy, please!”

Sam howls and tries to reach Dean, but there are hands on him, pulling him back, _pinning_ him back, growing slowly tighter around his chest, until he can’t breathe. Dean gurgles blood.

A hand flies at his face, smacking him harshly, and Sam blinks the tears of fear from his eyes. Dean is before him, destroyed. He should be a corpse, no one can lose that much blood and survive. “Sam, you have to be quiet!” Dean whispers harshly. Claw marks rent his face in half.

Sam kisses him just to stop looking at all the blood. Dean is warm and real and dry under his hands, cracked but plush lips slotting against his, heart beating and still alive. Sam pulls him into his arms, fingers tracing down his back. With his eyes closed, he can feel Dean's skin through his shirt, unbroken and so, so warm. A distant thought tells him that it’s wrong, but all he wants – needs is to remember Dean is alive. For a long moment, they stand like this, and Dean doesn’t move at all until he shoves him.

“Sam, what the hell are you doing?”

Sam falls back against the wall, jarring his elbows against one of the nails stuck in the plaster. Dean's backing away, face twisted in some unrecognizable emotion. He can’t place Dean’s face at all. “Dean...”

“ ~~We can't do this, Sam,~~ What is wrong with you?” Dean ~~says, cupping his face in his hands groaning.~~ demands, wiping his mouth with his filthy sleeve, streaking it with grime.

“Dean, I just-”

“ ~~We just can't. God, we're so...~~ You just thought that was okay?”

Sam clutches his head. There's a pounding in his temples – his skull feels as though it's about to split open at the seams. The world pulses around him, seems closer and smaller, as though he’s being shut away. “I'm so sorry.” Lucifer steps into his line of sight, blocking Dean from view.

“See what you've done?” Lucifer says. “See what sort of sick twisted psycho you really are? Your own _brother_ , not content with lusting after an _angel_.” He smiles and steps to the side, and Sam can see Dean again. His ~~eyes are averted, his shoulders slumped~~ teeth are bared.

“ ~~No, don't...~~ Never touch me again. Don't even look at me, you god damned freak. You're not my brother. You're just a monster.” He ~~scrubs a limp hand over his face~~ pushes Sam against the wall harder. “ ~~Look, we...~~ Don't look at me!” The ash drifts down between them through the open ceiling.

Slowly, Sam begins to laugh, though at first it sounds more like a whimper.

“ ~~Sam, we're gonna talk about this,~~ YOU PIECE OF SHIT, YOU'VE ALWAYS DRAGGED US DOWN, ~~Sam, you're my brother,~~ **I SHOULD HAVE LEFT YOU DEAD** , ~~we're gonna talk about this later, okay?~~ **I SHOULD HAVE KILLED YOU MYSELF**. ~~Are you alright? Sammy, what’s wrong, can you hear me?~~ I SHOULD HAVE **SLIT** YOUR THROAT IN YOUR SLEEP AND **WATCHED YOU DIE** , YOU **USELESS** , **SICK** **FUCK**.”

“See,” Sam says. “See what you are?” Sam laughs harder. “You are ruiner, you are a destroyer. You are mine, because no one else would have your filth.” Sam's overlong hair shadows his face.

~~“Sam? What the hell are you talking about?” Dean asks, his voice warbled and indistinct to Sam's ears. He takes a step forward, hands outstretched.~~

“ _Sam_?” Sam echoes.

~~“Sam!” Dean's hands squeeze his shoulders and~~

Dean is thrown back against the opposite wall, something in his shoulder crunching with the force of the impact.

The air in the destroyed building pulsates, plaster crumbling from the walls in chunks. Sam laughs. “Sammy's not home.”

Dean groans, fresh bruises blooming along his back. “What d’you-- who the hell are you then?”

“Don't you recognize me Dean-o?” Sam says, standing up tall and imposing. “Feels so good to stretch my legs, you know? I've been chipping away in there for _aaaages_.” His image starts to bleed color, grasping out towards him, bulging, _seeping_ , and Dean’s pressed tightly against the wall before he even registers the sight, feeling little tugs like thorns snatching on the legs of his well-worn denim jeans and at the thick skin of his forearms.

Sam, or the image of Sam, stutters before him like a broken recording, a cacophony of visions dancing before him- Sam screaming, with blood on his mouth, Sam, peaceful, with a bullet hole through his head, Sam with deep, dark eyes blacker than midnight- before it settles on his brother dressed in impeccable _white_. It doesn't completely stop flickering- the face can't seem to stop shifting, from rage, to calm, to manic, screaming laughter- but the voice that issues forth is even.

Dean knows it, from the deepest part of his nightmares.

“How nice to see you, Dean.” There's arrogance practically dripping off the words and onto the stained pavement. “I knew I'd see you again.”

Dean's fists clench, and an uncontrollable tremble shudders through his frame.

The Devil smirks.

“You know, it's kind of funny. You were so _sure_ I was just Sammy losing it. So ready to think something else was _wrong_ with your little brother.”

Dean's teeth grind to the point of pain, a little blood escaping his clenched fists where his nails have dug in. “You're locked up down below.” Another pulse knocks Ruby's knife out of his sneaking hand and presses him even tighter against the wall.

Lucifer giggles, though for a split second his face flickers into something like agony. “I have a theory about you, _Dean_. You're afraid, Dean. You're afraid of Sam, sure, but you're more afraid that Sam is only a reflection of _you_. That you're the true monster. And maybe you are. Do you covet your little brother Dean? Or that useless little angel? I've seen the way you look at them, Dean. _Definitely_ not in holy ways. Do you want to _fuck_ them or rip them apart?”

“Where are they?” Dean grinds out. The pressure pushing him against the wall increases and a bit of plaster cracks and tumbles to the ground.

Lucifer's body flickers and it's Sam as he was, in his faded jeans and flannel shirt. He's _screaming_ , pounding at some invisible barrier, eyes boring right into and through Dean. The image is barely there for a second before calming again to the white clad imitation. “Are you blind? Sammy’s right here. What would you want with them anyway? What use do you have for a crazy little brother- definitely crazy by the way, I made _sure_ of that, so that much is true- and a possessed angel who doesn't even remember who he was? Really, you should just get the hell out of Dodge, leave behind your useless luggage. You could probably make it out alone, you know.” An apple appears in his hand, but when he takes a bite the inside appears rotten. “Oh! I know!”

In a moment, it's Sam again, Sam unbuttoning his shirt with agonizing hesitation. His face is shamed, red and downcast, as his fingers slip to the button of his jeans.

Time seems to fast forward around the thing pretending to be his brother, and Lucifer takes several steps too close in a split second. He bends, and his fingers curl around Dean's chin.

Dean can't move any farther backward, but Lucifer's arm wraps around his neck. “Let me--!”

Lucifer wears Sam's face all wrong. The smile shows all his teeth, pulls his cheeks far too tight. “Looking at your brother like that, _shame_ Dean.” A forked tongue slips from beneath Sam's teeth. “Oh, but he wants it. Why do you think that is Dean?”

“Shut up,” Dean cries, hands clawing uselessly at the dirty, burnt ground. “You're _nothing_. You're nothing but a memory.”

“ _Sigh_. Alas, you've caught me, officer. I suppose I’ll just go away, and Sammy will be whole and _healthy_. Is that what you want to hear?” He stands and shrugs. “If only things worked that way. Enjoy your death, Dean.” The howling of hellhounds reappears in the distance and Sam’s twisted face looks almost as though he is mourning. “Ah, here it comes! Goodbye, Dean.” Dean falls to the ground, released.

“Sam!” Dean calls desperately, picking himself up out of the rubble and trying to crawl to his feet. The Devil walks calmly and collectedly out into the fog. “Sam!” Dean screams, running after him, but he’s already disappearing into the ash. “Sam! Oh God no.” The white suit fades away, out of sight. Howling surrounds him, and he is utterly alone. “God no, _Sam_."


	7. VI

 

 

 

[ ](http://weareallpuppets.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/978/35875)

  


“It's our only bet,” Bobby says to Jody as he throws a duffle bag into one of Rufus's old camper vans.

“I know, you're totally right, but do we have a plan at all? Do we even know where to head for specifically?”

“They said they were gonna make for a straight shot down the I-90, and try East Pennsylvania first, so that's what we're doing. We got the horn and a stupid hope the horn and Dean are all we need. We don't got Dean so we have to _find_ Dean.”

“I know. I just... It seems like maybe we're walkin' into the same trap the boys did.”

“Sure. Except the trap's already been sprung. If there's one thing I've figured out over years of this apocalypse crap, it's that the big bad bastards only consider the biggest pieces on the board until the littler pieces bite them in the ass.”

“Sayin' we're pawns, Bobby?”

“Not exactly. But those devils and monsters and things think we are, so we _use_ that. Have we hit a snag? It could be a trap, yeah, but I really don't think they even thought to consider the Winchesters' wouldn't be the ones to worry about.” Bobby smiles, tossing a case of water in the back. “They messed with my boys, so we're gonna give them hell.”

Jody matches his smile, albeit with worry tugging at the soft lines of her face. “I can see the legends now. An old drunk, a lost sheriff, and heaven's littlest angel, stopping the apocalypse. What number is this, three?” She softly kicks Bobby's boot.

“If only all the other apocalypses went this quickly,” Bobby jokes. “Next time I know to knock Dean and Sam out and do the work myself.”

“Hopefully, there will be no more,” Inias says, appearing behind Bobby with a flutter. Bobby jumps, hits his elbow on the van door, and swears. “When – if I get back to heaven, I will make sure of it.”

“Shit, you guys and your goddamned appearin',” Bobby grumbles.

“Do I really... need to ride in this...?” Inias asks, eying the van and seeming not to notice Bobby's rancor.

“Unless you know where to zap us, or where to fly over searchin', then yes.”

Inias frowns, like a child. “It seems so slow.”

Bobby pushes Inias into the backseat.

 

 

 

[ ](http://weareallpuppets.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/978/37086)

Out of the corner of his eye, Dean sees a shadow in the fog, shaped like a stooping figure, seemingly blown huge in the approaching darkness of night. He's supposed to be searching for shelter – night in purgatory is no kinder alone than it was with Sam at his side, far less so – but he sees the drape of familiar coat, and Dean makes after it, approaching slowly, carefully. He readies his makeshift weapon, a bit of unwieldy pipe, though it's saved his life more than once. The second time he'd been cornered by hell hounds, after his brother had disappeared, he'd smashed in the head of the biggest, most mangled beast and broke through, though the slowly healing skin of his forearms will bear bite mark scars for the rest of his life, however long that may be. He wipes the grime and sweat from his face onto his already grimy sleeve, ready to call out to the figure, but he's startled when the shadow begins to run from him.

Cautiously, he follows, trying to keep his tread light and his breathing steady, but whatever he's following, be it his friend, or some memory less shell, or leviathans, is fast. Dean runs a bit faster through the streets. He turns the corner on some unmarked street and comes face to face with a lamppost. That is not strange in and of itself, for many litter the ruined landscape in mockery of a real town, but this is the first Dean's seen to still emit light.

Another springs to life in the fog, throwing the running shadow in huge relief, then another and another, in a long line stretching out of sight. Dean runs after him, aching legs protesting. He's been on the move constantly, since Sam disappeared five days ago, looking for any sign of him or Castiel, but he does not allow himself respite.

The lamps stop alighting before him, and as he approaches the last one, he sees a large building illuminated by its glare. It's largely unmangled, standing out suspiciously against the broken pavement and scorched land, but light from its front windows is flooding onto the street and the fronts doors are swinging wildly, so that's where Dean goes.

Just inside the wide foyer, the figure has stopped, and stares widely at Dean as he enters, panting from exertion. He's nearly unrecognizable, under the gore, but his pale eyes shine out of his dirty face like beacons. There's no tar-blood dripping from his body, but there's nothing of Castiel either.

“Cas,” Dean tries.

Castiel laughs, a choked, weak sound, and takes off running, thrusting open the door to the stair well. Dean follows with all the strength he can muster, but the flights keep climbing and Castiel seems to continuously be just out of sight, his trench coat whipping out of view with each corner Dean rounds. Dean's breath is coming in hard, sorry gasps, wrenching through his throat and stealing his precious little breath, but the stairs just keep carrying him up, up, up.

It's not until he thinks he can't manage another step that he hears a door slam and rounds the corner to find himself just below a single emergency door, trembling still with the force of its closing. Dean sucks in a painful breath and forces himself up the last flight, leaning heavily on the railing and sweating beneath his filthy layers. The door weighs like stone, screeching in protest as it takes all his strength to force open. Creeping, pure darkness, waits beyond, the weak light of the stairwell throwing a small square of dirty rooftop in to vision, but nothing further. Night had fallen as he'd run, just as dark and lightless as the now innumerable ones before it.

“Cas?” he manages to croak out, squinting in the dark. “Cas, come on, man, I know you're in there, somewhere.” There's no answer, and no wind. The door slams behind him and throws him into total darkness.

He wanders blindly, grimacing as his feet stick and squelch in the ground beneath his feet, like he's stepped in tacky half-dried blood. He trips on something that covers his pants legs in lukewarm and similarly sticky liquid, swearing up a storm but daring not to feel around for whatever he tripped over. He doesn't want to know.

“Cas, listen to me. I know you're in there, I know you saved us, more than once. You're always saving us. Let me help you.” Dean hears the screeching of something like a bird overhead, though the sound of wings that passes over him sound far too large for anything smaller than a bus. “I need you.”

“You _need_. You always need. You're so _needy_.”

Dean hears the lighting of a match and instantly sees the flame flickering some ten feet off, illuminating Castiel's haggard face. His eyes look black in the half light.

 

 

 

[ ](http://weareallpuppets.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/978/37206)

Dean takes a few cautious steps forward, pointedly staring at Castiel. He's standing some several inches too tall- and in the seconds it takes Dean's eyes to adjust, Dean realizes Cas is standing on the crumbling roof edge. “What I am,” Dean chokes out, stretching forward a dirty hand to his friend, “is a helluva lot less important than you getting down offa there right this second.”

Castiel grins, more a baring of teeth than a smile. The match flame edges closer to his pinched fingers, close enough it should be starting to burn the skin, but Castiel doesn't react. “I could fly before I met you, you know, but now I have no wings, not anymore. They ripped out all my feathers. I have done so much for you, yet again and again you need.”

Dean's stomach lurches, but he steps a bit closer. Castiel leans back. Chunks of stone break off the ledge and fall down, down, down into the darkness, until there's a distant splash of water. The match burns out, but Castiel lights another, before Dean can force himself to speak again.

He holds his hands up before him, trying his best to look placating, though he's confused and utterly and uncontrollably terrified. He watches the match flame dance, seemingly unbothered by the howling wind. “Yeah. Yeah, we all fucked up. I'm not gonna pretend I know what's goin' on in your head Cas, but you've got to fight it, okay?” He takes another few steps forward, almost within reach of Castiel. “You're still you, even if it's coming back slow. You're not some drugged up asshole, you're not the leviathan's chew toy. You're my... my friend, alright? More than my friend. So how about we get off this creepy ass building, find Sammy, and figure a way out of this mess? We can play the blame game somewhere closer to the ground, and I won't even try to dodge any.” Slowly, he stretches his hand closer, fingertips just inches from Castiel's coat sleeve.

Castiel's grin falls. “No,” he says, one foot scooting backwards and hovering over empty, black air. He teeters precariously and more concrete crumbles into unseen water. For a moment, fear seems to flicker over Castiel's face. “Dean, help me.” Dean lurches forward just as Castiel starts to drop, watching helplessly as the last sputters of flame illuminate his friend's torn, maddened face and die out when his arms close around nothing.

Castiel's laughter echoes all the way down, through the darkness.

There's a moment's hesitation, before Dean steels himself and joins him.

Maybe he’s killing himself, he considers, as the freezing weightlessness of the air whistles through his greasy hair. Maybe he’ll meet a messy and unpleasant end on the concrete below.

Instead, he finds himself completely buried in water, icy, cold, cutting into his ribs like razors. He struggles to breach the surface, taking huge, desperate gasps from the pitch, black air. “Cas!” he calls out. Castiel’s pleas for help batters around his mind. “Cas!” The wind howls in his ears.

“Why aren’t you dead, yet?!” comes Castiel’s voice so full of rage, Dean almost slips beneath the churning water. What feels like a slimy rotting hand tries to grip his ankle and he strikes out at it.

“I’m like a cockroach,” Dean sputters, with as much malice as he can muster with salt in his eyes. “Keep trying to crush me, you son of a bitch.” The rotting hand multiplies into twenty, and as much as Dean kicks, he can’t keep them from coiling around his limbs. “Go on, kill me. Make him do it!”

Rather than dragging him under, the appendages pull him through the dark water. Salt water is forced Dean’s nose and mouth, and he chokes, flailing in the sea, until he slams hard up onto a rocky shelf, where he’s left to lay, choking and gasping.

“Still – _guh_ – not dead,” he gasps.

Something rises out off the water, dripping heavily onto the rocks. “Why, why, _why_? We should have just killed you the second we laid eyes on your filthy face, should ripped out your nasty little eyes. No more.”

Castiel’s hands grab his throat and _squeezes_.

“No _more_.”

 

 

 

 

[ ](http://weareallpuppets.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/978/37655)

He's lost.

In what seems to be a motel, judging from the numbered doors and ugly décor. A never ending motel, since no matter how many corners he turns, there is another hallway with a string of doors, their numbers steadily climbing. He's been running and walking for time beyond his measure, and the numbers are in five digits, but he's seen no windows, no emergency exit doors.

The motel rooms he's tried to open have been locked, if he was lucky, or burnt his hands if he was not, the metal doorknobs as hot as if they had been thrust in a fire. One such knob had nearly taken the skin of his palms off, heat sticking and grasping at his skin like glue, like it had a mind of its own and it _wanted_ him.

He doesn’t know how he got where he is. He doesn’t remember _who_ he is. He doesn't even remember what he looks like. He knows what a motel is- has a feeling they are significant to him in some way- he knows that this isn't normal, but there's a thousand empty spaces between the cracks. The things that remain don't make any _sense_. He remembers a tower and a fish. He remembers an impossible cacophony of light and noise. He _thinks_ he has brothers, but he can't remember if there are two, one tall and one broad, or quite a lot more.

The sound of water grows behind him. It's been growing steadily as he has run, making sure his legs continue to propel him forward. He has no idea what the water is, but he fears it. He remembers the sensation of drowning.

He’s not fast enough. Every time he thinks he’s outrun it, the water grows closer. It laps at his heels, laughing, grinning ( _and how can water grin?_ ), biting his skin, taking little chunks away. He forgets the tower. He forgets a friendly face. He forgets how to fly ( _has he ever flown, how can he, when he has no wings?_ ).

The water climbs up his legs. Entire pieces feel stripped away from his bones, boiled raw and eaten up ( _he’s forgetting how to sing, how to fight, why did he need to fight?_ ) and it just keeps swelling and taking from him, not content till it eats him through entirely.

“Help me,” he gasps when it laps at his ribcage, threatening to seep inside and devour his very heart.

“I’m sorry,” gasps a voice. The water cringes away from his heart, screeching.

“Who are you?” he asks ( _dusted freckles, dusted hair, dusted pink lips_ ).

“I’m sorry,” it repeats. Strength finds him. The water tries to cling on, but soon he's outstripping it, though sneaky tendrils grasp and shriek desperately for his return. He feels pieces slipping back into place ( _overlong hair, sad eyes, dimples you could sink into_ ).

He turns the corner, and, there, at the end of the hall, stands a solitary door- emergency door, do not open. The water rushes forward, trying to overtake him, but he can hear the voice calling softly from beyond the doorway. His hands find the bar and shove it open just as the water grasps at the skin of his heels, and he slips away in the moment before it can catch him, listening to the deep voice call out to him.

“Cas.”

 

 

 

[ ](http://weareallpuppets.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/978/37086)

When he comes to himself it's like breathing for the first time after coming back from the dead. It's a familiar feeling- it's happened to him enough.

He remembers that.

His vision is blurry, but Dean kneels before him and there's blood bubbling between his lips. A grey dawn has risen.

“I'm so sorry, Cas, I know, I know.” His lip is split, his nose cracked, and he's on his knees, hands limp and undefending at his sides.

Castiel releases him, scrambling back and falling against a rocky shore. Memories creep into places they shouldn't be, and he doesn't quite remember everything he feels he ought to. “Dean?”

Dean falls forward to his hands, but smiles with bloody teeth. “It's you. It's _you_ , Cas. You did it.”

Castiel shakes his head. Things slot into place slowly, quietly.

Dean crawls forward, taking Castiel's palms between his own. He hacks blood onto the rocks. “You're _you_.”

Castiel grits his teeth and shakes his head. “They... are inside me. The leviathans. They're thrashing, fighting. They are not happy.”

Dean laughs, chest rattling. “Yeah, I got that. Let ‘em stew in it.”

A black eye is forming itself on Dean's face, but he looks hopeful for the first time in a long time. “They made me do so much to you,” Cas whispers, face scrunching up, as though in pain. “To Sam. They _hid_ my Grace.” Desperation blooms in his tone.

“But look what you did. You saved our asses twice. You didn’t kill me. Do I look dead to you? What they made you do is nothin’.”

“And what about the things _I_ did to you?” Castiel almost shouts. “What about the things I did and said? What about those pills I took? What about the way I broke Sam's wall? Lied to you?” He shudders violently.

Dean's smile slips off his face and into a look of contemplation, though marred by the forming bruises and slowly congealing blood. “Honestly?”

Dean pauses for a long time, eyebrows drawn together. “I’m angry – yeah, I'm still, really, freakin' angry. But. But, you know what. You've forgiven us for the shit we’ve done. Hell, Sam's forgiven both of us, way more than we deserve. I...” Dean coughs, frowning awkwardly and making a disgusted noise. “C'mere.” He pulls Cas forward into his arms, into a long overdue embrace.

Castiel leans into Dean’s wet chest, his arms resting on his waist slowly, cautiously. “Thank you,” he says, barely a whisper.

“Yeah, Yeah.” Dean says, releasing him and sitting back, embarrassed. “Freakin' chick flick stuff. Are you gonna be...?”

Castiel nods. “I have the advantage now. Things are blurry, but I know what they're planning. I can hold them off, though I don't know how long. They thought I could never take control and they're fighting harder now because they want to kill you. It's not fun anymore- hasn't been fun for a while. You lasted a lot longer than they thought you would.” Cas gives Dean a half-smile.

Dean grimaces, wiping a hand over his grubby face, wiping away his own blood. “Always underestimating us. No worries, dude, we'll get them out of you.”

Castiel looks at Dean beneath his eyelashes. “Alright,” he says with all the conviction of a soldier about to die. Dean sends him a glare, but Castiel holds up a hand. “But before we can make any move, we must save Sam.”

“You can find him?”

“I can,” Castiel says solemnly. “The portion of purgatory we are fenced in is far smaller than it seems and he... he stands out like an explosion. But...”

“But?”

“But he's in bad shape.”

“Yeah, I know. I was...” He trails off, rubbing his lips uncertainly. “I was there. He had a bad hallucination. We just got to bring him back to reality.”

“It may not be so simple.”

“When is it ever. What is it?”

"Didn't you feel the power he wielded? He's using his powers again. There are few limits to this place, and he was strong already. Here, he might as well be Lucifer.”

Dean's eyes narrow. "He was weak, God, Cas, he was dying.”

“He’s in no danger of dying now,” Castiel says quietly. “If we save him, if we can break through to him, it will become a problem again, but now he is more in danger of losing himself. Here, he could - will become the boy king he was destined to, new Father of all monsters.”

Dean leans heavily on the rocks beneath his hands and knees. The grey sea beyond the rocks is quiet, and nothing stirs upon the ash shore. “Goddamnit. What do we do?” Dean closes his eyes, scrubbing his eyes and scrubbing his hand over them.

"We proceed with the original plan and try to get through to him." His arms uncharacteristically draw up around him. “I was simply warning you. There’s a good chance he will kill us.”

“One we have to take.”

“I know.”

Dean’s bloodied face stares out into the ocean and he kicks his legs against the rocks. “What a crappy vacation. We’re never going to Pennsylvania again.”

“We’re not in Pennsylvania.”

Dean rolls his bloodshot eyes. “Why are we trapped in such a little piece of purgatory anyway?” The gate that surrounds the town cuts across the water too. The water beyond it churns with the undead.

“My siblings,” Cas says simply.

“Your- What?”

Castiel gestures upwards. One of the towering winged figures stands before them in the sea, taller than a skyscraper. Dean traces the outlines of its great wings, stretching miles, until they meet tip to tip with another set barely visible in the fog.

“They're keeping most of them out. It's only due to them we have not yet died. There is an infinity out there and I have swallowed them all. They are very mad.”

“You're talking about the monsters? They're all out there?”

“All of them.”

Dean looks up at the closest figure. Unlike the one he had seen on the first day, it has six great grey wings. “So this is where angels go too, when they die. Huh. So that's...”

“Gabriel.”

Dean's eyes widen. “Wow. Never woulda thought. The others?”

“Haniel- Anna.” Castiel motions to the farthest figure, almost invisible, but for drooping feathers that gave the impression of a massive willow tree.

“And?”

Castiel ignores him and speaks instead to the smallest figure of the three. “Balthazar, I am so sorry.” The angel shifts in the fog, its wings rustling and bringing down a huge gust of air that nearly knocks them into the water.

“Whoa, he's dead? I thought he just went back into hiding.”

“I killed him.”

“Oh. Why?”

“He betrayed me, so I thought, for you.”

“So… you knew about that. But he's still protecting us?”

Castiel gazes up, grief breaking over his face. “There are endless things I regret, but of all things, I do not think I can repent for that.”

Dean sighs. “We all have a laundry list of screw ups ten miles long. All we can do is try to set things right, I think. Let’s start with Sam.” He turns to Castiel, their faces close.

Castiel frowns, his eyes dipping over Dean's very close profile. His arms fall stiffly to his sides. He licks his lips. “Yes.”

Dean begins to move away, but Castiel moves forward, and their noses bounce off each other. Dean swears and Castiel frowns. Quietly, he swoops forward again, pressing his lips against Dean’s for a silent moment. The kiss is chaste, though Dean's heart seems like it's intent on hammering out of his chest.

Castiel moves back, staring straight into Dean's eyes. Dean does not blink and Castiel matches him. “I owe Sam one, as well.” Dean swallows.

“Yeah... Me- me too.” His face is flushed bright red, shamed, but Castiel just nods, slowly, taking Dean's hand between his own. Dean's hard faced flush eases. Castiel helps Dean to his feet and they leave the shore.

 

 

 

[ ](http://weareallpuppets.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/978/37086)

Inias sulks in the back of Bobby’s van, fingers drumming on the window. “How can anyone stand to travel like this?”

“Don’t be a baby. You’re thousands of years old, and you haven’t even been in a car for two days,” Jody digs, with a smile.

Inias purses his lips. “It makes it no less boring.” The road stretches out before them, dark and seemingly without end. “Or less worrisome.” He rests his face against the cold glass windowpane.

“I’m worried too,” Bobby says gruffly. “About all three of ‘em. Your brother and I didn’t always see eye to eye, but he wasn’t a bad… person.” Bobby grits his teeth. “You can worry, but what you’re doin’ is moping. Moping ain’t doin’ them no good though, you hear?” He takes his foot off the accelerator, which he had been pushing a bit too hard.

Inias crosses his arms. “No, I suppose, it doesn’t. Sorry.”

Jody rolls her eyes and looks at the map, as though it’s interesting, as though she hasn’t pored over it a thousand times. They drive on in silence.

“Stop the car,” Inias says suddenly.

“What?”

“ _Stop._ ”

“ _What now_?” Bobby rolls to a stop. The road is empty, and he and Jody turn in their seats to look at the wide eyed and smiling Inias. “What?”

“I know where my brother is.”

 

 

 

[ ](http://weareallpuppets.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/978/37086)

“I’m sorry I cannot heal your face,” Castiel says as he and Dean walk side by side.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m still the most handsome.”

Castiel gives him a half a smile, though it falters. “He is near.”

“So what chance do we have of reaching him?”

“It depends on how far gone he is.”

“And how far do you think that is?”

“Very far gone, I’d say,” says Sam’s voice. Castiel and Dean scrabble backwards as Sam, dressed all in white, but so spotless, emerges from the shadow between two burnt our buildings. “Little brother,” he nods to Castiel.

Castiel raises a clawed hand, but nothing happens.

“Oh, just don’t. You can barely even lift yourself. Use even a fraction of energy on your Grace and those squirmy little _worms_ inside you will take over the whole operation, won’t they?” Sam lifts a hand and Cas goes flying, slamming into the asphalt some ten feet off.

“Stop it, Sam!” Dean cries out, stepping forward.

“I am not him,” Sam says, viciously. He flattens Dean on the ground with a twitch of finger. “I am not that freak!” He trembles with rage, twitching his fingers down, and down again, until Dean is screaming with pain.

“You’re not—guh,” Dean spits up more blood, laughing. “We’re freaks, yeah. We’re freaks,” the pressure on Dean relieves just a bit, so that Sam can fling Castiel down as well. “You and I are messed up, S-Sammy.” Sam clenches his fists, and both Dean and Cas cry out in pain. “But we can—gaah—suffer for it, or we can accept it.”

“Accept!” Sam shouts, his voice breaking. “Accept two centuries in hell, accept demon blood, accept that I want to do things with you that no brother should wish to? You never wanted to accept me. Either of you! Well, I am no longer nothing but the boy with the demon blood.” Sam's image swims, half Lucifer, half Sam, enraged both. He brings a boot to Dean's throat, pressing hard. Dean begins to choke.

“You stopped- being the boy with the demon blood long ago,” Cas grits out from the pavement. “You are Sam Winchester and you- proved an angel of the lord wrong.”

“Stop! Stop it! Sam Winchester is a mistake. I am not him, I won't be him. I am so much more than he ever was.”

“Sam,” Dean gasps. His eyes roll up into his head, but his limp fingers thread around Sam's ankle.

With a final, agonized cry, Sam snaps his fingers.

 

 

 

[ ](http://weareallpuppets.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/978/37086)

“It’s weak,” Inias says. “But I can sense him again. I know where he was. The trail is no older than a week.” He’s zapped the three of them, van and all, to an abandoned road outside an abandoned town. The Impala sits before their headlights, looking dusty.

“God,” Jody says, eying the damage. “What happened here?”

“No normal crash,” Inias says. It’s early, before sunrise, though that’s not far off. “The leviathan have their slimy hands in all of this. If Dean isn’t dead, he is close. They like to play with their food. Go up this road.”

Bobby takes the van over the smoothest pieces of road, easing them onto an old forest trail. “If Dean is dead?”

“Then we all die,” Inias says resolutely.

“Do we have back up, at all? Does your garrison have a plan if this fails?” Jody asks.

“Their plan, as it ever was, is to sit back and let it unfold however it may.”

“No pressure, then.”

“Turn here.”

A few roads and a few more turns leads them up to a drab, grey hill with a drab, grey church. Remains of what may have been a gorgeous stained glass window lies in scattered broken pieces.

“This is the place.” Inias’s brow furrows. “They’ve… done something. There’s something wrong here.”

“Do we just charge in?” Jody asks.

“I see no better option.”

“Stupidest thing I’ve ever agreed to,” Bobby grumbles, “but let’s do it.”

Bobby and Jody arm themselves with all manner of weapons, though Inias insists that swords would be most effective, while Inias twirls his small angel blade in hand. The horn of truth is tucked safely in the pocket of his jeans.

With any ado, they climb up the stairs and push open the front doors.

Inside stands a congregation of about twenty people. At their head, looking ragged and viciously angry, stands a handsome man in a torn priests raiment. All heads turn to them.

“Isn’t that that CEO that disappeared a few weeks ago?” Jody squeaks, too terrified to focus on anything else. She readies her sword.

“Who the hell are you?” Dick Roman asks, baring his teeth. His followers stand and their mouths split wide, revealing a thousand sharp needle teeth.

“Friends of the Winchesters.” Bobby states clearly, cocking his shotgun and aiming it at the head of the nearest leviathan.

“Cockroaches!” Dick seethes, sharp teeth too big in his mouth. “Vermin! The lot of you. My poor children, sacrificing themselves to lock the Winchesters away and yet they refuse to _die_.”

“Humans are a bit like that, yeah.”

“Tasty little angel!” whispers one of the nearest monsters, leering at Inias. “Angel Grace, I have always wanted to try some.” Jody takes a great swing and looses the Leviathan’s head from its neck. It flounders on the ground, not dead, as its head is reattaching slowly, but screeching in pain.

The leviathans begin to attack. Inias brings the horn to his lips and blows.

 

 

 

[ ](http://weareallpuppets.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/978/37086)

In the second before Sam can snap his fingers and turn them into paste, a great blast rings out, beating through the ash sky, like the world's greatest trumpet. Sam stumbles, and falls to his hands and knees. His image flickers. “What… What is going on?” he asks, throat sounding bone dry. Blood seeps through and stains his white clad thigh, his eyes shut tight, as though he’s in agony. He groans, shuddering, screaming and finally falling flat onto his face, nothing for all intents and purposes, but Sam once more, in jeans and an ugly flannel shirt.

His face lies in a puddle of rainwater.

Dean and Castiel can barely move out of the craters Sam had made of them, but they manage to do so anyway, spitting blood and walking agonizingly slow to where Sam lay.

He barely moves, but to breathe.

“Get up, Sam,” Dean says, cradling an arm to him. The horn note goes on, unending.

Sam moves to curl in on himself.

Dean reaches down and, with great effort and a hand from Cas, pulls Sam to his feet. Sam leans into their arms, head cast downward.

"You hesitated," Cas says, patting Sam on the back. "Thank you."

“I meant what I said,” Dean says as they limp together down the way. "About acceptin' it."

Sam looks into Dean’s eyes, listlessly, until Dean presses a chaste kiss to the side of his mouth. He turns widening eyes to Castiel, who repeats the gesture. “Oh. Alright.”

As the horn blows, the fog clears away, their whole section of the world becoming well-defined before them. It's really quite small, nothing but an abandoned town once more.

And standing on the hill, straight down the street before them, no more than a mile off, lies the church, as grey as ever, the stained glass window in which Jesus hangs shining out onto the valley. He wears an angry frown.

“That is the Horn of Gabriel,” Castiel says, with a real smile creeping onto his face. “Our chance of survival just grew exponentially.”

Dean throws Cas a confused look. “How does a horn save our life?”

“It means the leviathans can be killed. And, I think, we can escape this place while we are at it.”

“Explain that to us,” Sam says mouth shrugging downward. He’s pale, but slowly moving on his own feet.

“To open the doorway here, the leviathans sacrificed many of their number at one time, to rip open a hole in the wall, so to speak. If the biggest of them all were to die, I think the same would happen. To kill him, we need Gabriel’s Horn, and Michael’s Sword. It was a topic of discussion for many eons amongst the garrisons. I always thought it was the weapons.”

“Cas…” Dean says, tersely.

“Yes, you are still Michael’s sword, Dean.”

“So I have to kill him?” Dean pulls Sam a little tighter into his arms.

“Yes, but we will be with you. And we’ll have the element of ‘surprise’,” Castiel says, making an airquote with his free hand. Cas sends the Winchesters a smile that they return, and they make their way slowly down the main street. “I have faith in you.”

“Yeah,” Dean says. “You're gonna watch over Sam, right?”

“Hey, I need both of you to watch out for me, so I can watch over you,” Sam says with a weak laugh. His leg is bleeding sluggishly, and he's as pale as ever.

The horn pauses for a moment and the world trembles at their feet, the road cracking as they pass and releasing steam that heats the air several degrees.

“Whoa, did you see that?” Dean asks. One of the three great winged figures has vanished. They look to the others, and see them disappear as well. The gates that have protected them begin to fall and they can just barely see that all the land beyond is writhing with monsters. “Fuck, what happened?” The horn begins to blow again.

“Don't worry, we're just pooling our protection a little closer,” says a voice from Dean's left. Dean whips out Ruby's knife and it finds itself pointed towards the neck of a very short man.

“Gabriel?” Dean asks. He narrows his eyes at him. “Why didn't you show up sooner?”

“Hey, don't get all bratty on the dude who has been protecting your ass. I've been here for thirteen years, which granted, ain't much for me, but it is when the fucking leviathans have been nibbling on the wires, taking the piss outta of the one they thought was supposed to kill them, however wrong they were. The sound of my horn gave me a little burst of juice, you might say.”

“You did love the sound of your own horn.” Castiel says, completely straight faced. Dean snorts.

“Thirteen years?” Sam asked. “But--”

“Purgatory time, kiddo.”

“So how long has it been since we got here?” Dean demands.

“Only about a week on earth.” Anna appears behind Sam, long red hair trailing behind her. She gives Dean a small, sly smile and pats Castiel on the shoulder encouragingly.

Castiel stops cold, almost dropping Sam. Balthazar has appeared to his right, his shirt cut as ridiculously low as always. “Cassie.”

Castiel shudders, grief settling onto his face. “Balthazar. I am so – ”

“Tut! I don't need to hear it. I couldn't convey it properly before, but I _am_ terribly miffed at the whole you killing me for these primates _thing_. Nonetheless, I stick by the fact that I am with you, always.” Balthazar shrugs. The howls and screams of the approaching waves of dead are becoming louder. “We really must move.”

“Best thing you've ever said to me,” Dean says. They walk on.

The first thing to reach them is a demon. Sam and Dean gape- their true faces really are hideous, a screaming burnt skeletal thing that looks so far removed from human that it's almost impossible to tell it once was. It moves as though half smoke, though it cannot seem to touch the main road. It beats its bony fists against thin air.

“We've got you covered,” Gabriel reassures them.

Many more join it, all demons, moving as fast as smoke, screaming and jeering. “Winchesters!” they call. “ _Winchesters!_ ”

A small demon, jet black, moves to the front of the horde. “Dear Sammy,” she calls, like a lover.

Sam turns his face away from Ruby's glittering black eyes, his jaw tightly set. The church is but a block away,

Catcalls and jeers issue from the horde and two more demons emerge, one with white eyes, one with yellow. Alistair and Azazel say nothing, merely watch on with wide, empty grins.

“What are they waiting for?” Dean asks when they've reached the bottom of the hill the church stands on.

“I think just to see who wins.” Other beasts have started to collect at the bottom of the barrier. “And maybe to hitch a ride top side if you do. We won't let that happen.”

“Does that mean you could...” Castiel barely dares to ask.

“Maybe.”

The horn continues to sound as they push open the church doors.

They're not expecting the writhing mass they find inside. Leviathans, hulking oily creatures with a thousand mouths and appendages like great ropy tentacles, litter ever corner of the church, hanging from the ceiling, seeping out from beneath cracks in the stone floor. Everything appears to be moving in slow motion. Jody swinging a sword in swift arc, taking off heads and limbs that writhe in inky pools on the floor. Bobby at her side, taking shot after shot with his shotgun, keeping the leviathans at bay, though they seem to simply shake off the blasts. The whole scene is completely silent to them, but for the blowing of the horn.

Inias has the horn to his lips, a magnificent golden thing nearly as long as he is, and he keeps himself blowing even though the priest Dick Roman has one of his hands around his neck, and he's squeezing. Richard is the biggest of them all, oil slipping out from beneath his robes and writhing, snake-like in the air. Castiel gasps, and in a split second, Inias's eyes flicker over the beast's shoulder and bore into his brother. An angel blade appears in Bobby's hand and in Dean's at the same second. Dean eases Sam fully into Castiel's arms and stands, tall and straight behind the greatest beast of them all.

“Stab him the second after Bobby does,” Gabriel instructs, looking almost passively on.

“Why?”

“I want to watch the bastard's gloating slip right off his slimy face. Inias's blade won't even scratch him in Bobby's hands or his own, but in yours it’s as good as a bomb.”

In agonizing slow time, Bobby turns and makes a run at Dick Roman, blade in hand. The fake priest laughs, throwing Inias to the side, where he slams painfully against the wall. Dean, Sam, and Castiel watch on nervously as Bobby runs, takes a small jump, and buries the blade into the priest's breastbone.

A smile cuts across Dick's face, wide and gloating with needle teeth. Dean shoves the blade into his heart.

 

 

 

[ ](http://weareallpuppets.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/978/37086)

Dick Roman smiles. “Pitiful. This is not even an archangel's blade, let alone Michael –” his words are cut short as a silver blade tip emerges from his chest.

“Joke's on you,” comes Dean's gruff voice from behind him. “Hiya, I'm Michael's sword.”

 

 

 

[ ](http://weareallpuppets.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/978/37086)

The world becomes awash with sound and time, screaming, whistling by. Dick Roman's form bubbles and begins to be dragged backwards into purgatory as though with a great sucking wind. Jody, Bobby, and Inias begin to move in real time and the grey that Dean, Sam, and Cas have seen the world in for so long begins to fade into colour.

“The door is open!” Gabriel shouts gleefully over the screaming rush of air. Dick attempts to grasp at them as he dies, though Anna and Balthazar's upturned hands seem to keep the dying leviathan from reaching through. The weaker leviathans try to dig their suckers into the earth, but the whirlwind caused by Dick's death is sucking them in too. “Dean, take Sam over first. He's gonna need medical attention.” Dean lifts a nearly unconscious Sam from Castiel's arms and takes him through.

Jody gasps. “You marvelous goddamned idiots!” She and Bobby rush forward, crushing the boys in an embrace, and Inias climbs slowly from the rubble, blood on his knuckles. Bobby and Jody support Sam while Dean goes back to the portal, reaching for Castiel's hand.

Castiel looks at him sadly. “Dean, I can't get through.”

“What? _What?_ No way, not now. _We need you_.” Dean tries to barrel through the doorway, but can't get past the limp body of the poor hack the biggest leviathan had coiled up inside, as though an invisible wall spread out from him.

“No, _no_ ,” Sam calls out weakly, struggling in Jody and Bobby's arms.

Inias steps forward, limping terribly, his eyes wide in horror. “Castiel, _Castiel_. They've eaten almost all of your grace, brother,”

“They're inside me, still,” Castiel says. Tar drips from the corner of his eye. “They are attached to my grace. They will not let me leave.”

“If it makes you feel any better, Cassie,” Balthazar says, stepping forward and catching Castiel's hand with his own, fingers stroking tenderly over the bloody knuckles. “Those of us with Grace can't exactly leave either. _Trust me_ , I tried when the door opened for the first time. Hurt quite a bit.”

“So I could never leave...?” Castiel asks quietly. “You're telling me, you led us here, knowing that?”

“Not exactly,” Balthazar says, squeezing Castiel's hand.

“Time is almost up,” Anna urges.

“You think we’d do that? That hurts, little bro. There is a way,” Gabriel says, holding his golden eyes against Castiel's own. “It will be painful. It comes with risks.”

“What do I have to _do_?” Castiel asks desperately.

“Rip out your Grace. Two problems taken care of in one.”

A beat passes. “Take it.”

“Are you sure, Castiel?” Anna asks gently.

“No. Of course not,” Castiel counters. "How could I ever be? You, Heaven, is all I have ever known. All evidence points to the fact that I make a terrible human.” He looks from his siblings in Purgatory to the real world, to Sam and Dean covered in blood and so very mortal. “But Sam and Dean need me now. I need them. I want to be mortal.”

“Then, go on!” Balthazar says, light heartedly, pushing Castiel through the rapidly shrinking portal. A bright white imprint fans out behind him, stuck to the barrier between worlds, with thick ropes of black coiled within it, before it too gets sucked back by the last of the torrent caused by the Leviathan's death.

Castiel falls into Dean's open arms, gasping with pain, but he manages to shout out through his agony. “Can't you be saved?”

“Maybe,” Balthazar calls from the shrinking doorway. “Not this way. We're nothing but Grace anymore. But it's okay, Cassie.”

“Goodbye, Castiel,” Anna says with a serene smile.

“Have a good life, bro,” Gabriel says. The door closes.

 

 

 

[ ](http://weareallpuppets.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/978/37086)

“Mortal!” Inias says, disbelieving, and more to himself than any of the others. “To make that choice, it seems so much...” He looks over Sam's leg regretfully. “If I were more powerful, I could heal it entirely, but the infection rooted itself deep. It won't ever... Most of us left are cupids and foot soldiers no more powerful than I am, but I could call my sister, Hester. Not too fond of humans, but she might do a better job.”

“No, you know what. It's okay. Leave it.” Sam pats Inias on the arm. “Thanks. I'm glad Bobby had the brains to call you.” Bobby and Jody stand at the door to the church, playfully nudging each other in the early morning sun.

Dean gives Sam a smile, real, and unbittered. “Yeah, yeah, rub it in.” The two of them scoot a little closer together, talking silently. Sam puts a warm palm over Dean's and Dean does not withdraw.

Inias moves over to sit next to Castiel quietly. Castiel rubs his knees, his elbows, and his neck. “I'm sorry, about causing you pain with what I said, when I didn't remember.”

“It's nothing. You were scared.” Inias crosses his arms. “Is that what it's like, being human?”

“It's confusing. Painful.” Castiel shrugs. “Weak. Your heart feels full a lot easier, I think.”

Inias brushes a bit of hair out of his face. “I kind of feel like that now.”

Castiel runs a hand over Inias's knuckles. “So what will you do about it?”

“What if I chose to fall?”

“You would be born as a human like Haniel was.” Castiel shrugs. “You would be born without burden, but you would be born without memory. You could also just stay on earth, until you fade from heaven.”

A long pause. “I need to go back. The others have not seen what you and I have seen. They chose humanity, your... side, but only marginally. I need to show them what I know. Maybe then I will...”

“I'll see you then, brother,” Castiel says with a small smile, squeezing Inias's hand. He disappears in a small flutter, 

He reappears before Bobby and Jody, startling them both. “And thank you.”

“Sure thing, kid,” Bobby says.

“See ya, squirt,” Jody says.

Inias smiles, and flies back to heaven.

Castiel scoots over to Sam and Dean, holding out his hands. Dean takes one and Sam takes the other. “So, where do we go from here?”

 

 


	8. Epilogue

 

[ ](http://weareallpuppets.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/978/37439)

  
  
  
The Impala stands glinting in the driveway of an old home in Lawrence, Kansas. Castiel's standing in the back yard, face turned upwards to the sunlight, when Sam finds him. His shirt is pale blue, unbuttoned at the top but nicely tucked into his clean blue jeans. The shirt matches his eyes.  
  
“Morning,” Sam yawns, walking towards him with a pronounced limp and wrapping his impossibly long arms around Castiel's shoulders from behind. Cas doesn't flinch. The early morning sun plays their shadows across the white sheets hanging on the line.  
  
Cas leans back into the bracket of Sam's arms. “I thought you had a law class.”  
  
“Cancelled, thankfully. It's boring. Sucks taking it again, just 'cause I'm legally dead.”  
  
Castiel chuckles slightly. "A hunter called, while you were asleep. Garth. Thinks he has a left over leviathan.”  
  
“Did you tell him to behead it? Easy as anything.”  
  
“Mm-hm. I had to remind him that they're no more scary than any other thing with teeth now. It didn't reassure him.”  
  
Sam laughs. “Good. Bobby called my cell, said he has a case that sounds like demons one county over, so if you and Dean want to check it out tomorrow, I'll hit the books tonight.”  
  
“Sounds good.” Castiel turns around, eyes searching the lines on Sam's face. “You didn't have a bad day, today, did you?”  
  
“No. No hallucinations, not even a whisper. It's been over a month since the last one, Cas.” His smile reaches his eyes. "I'm just tired."  
  
Castiel kisses Sam's chin, before slipping out of Sam's arms and laying down onto the grass. Sam leaves him sitting in the sunlight, staring at the sky. He retires to the study with a cup of black coffee, pulling out ancient books whose pages he's searched a thousand times, trying to squeeze one small piece of knowledge from them. His coffee has gone cold by the time the landline phone rings, coming in from a private number. After a moment, Sam picks it up. "Sam here," he answers simply.  
  
"Uh, hello, Sam."  
  
 Sam's eyebrows furrow, and he readjusts the earpiece in the crook of his neck. "Who is this?"  
  
  The voice on the phone clears his throat. "Uh, well, it's me, Chuck..."  
  
"Chuck?" Sam drops the tome he had been flicking through. "You're still alive! Good to hear, man. Where-  How did you get this number?"  
  
Chuck laughs nervously. "I just kinda... knew it. Anyways, I just wanted to apologize, Sam."  
  
 "Apologize?" Sam asks, thoroughly confused.  
  
"Yeah, for what you've been through. What all of you have been through."  
  
"So you're still seeing all that, huh? Thanks but, Chuck, you're just a writer."  
  
"I am."  
  
Sam pauses for a long time. "So why... did you call now?"  
  
"Because there was still baggage. But I took care of it."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"The three of you, you're weighed down with a lot of unnecessary guilt. That... I didn't feel that was right, not after all you've done. So I took care of it."  
  
Sam sees Adam out of the corner of his eye. "Oh!" He almost drops the phone, but Adam is free of blood and the smile on his face doesn't look like a hallucination. As soon as the image is there, it's gone. " _Oh_." He scrubs a hand over his face, trying to take it all in. "Why me?"  
  
"You're less likely to hang up, or find a way to punch me through the phone, like Dean surely would," Chuck quips, "Also, you deserve it."  
  
Sam's mouth goes dry. "What about..."  
  
"He's just outside."  
  
"Who's on the phone?" asks Castiel from the doorway. Sam hesitates, unsure of what to say, or how to even begin. His heart dances in his throat.  
  
"Let me," says Chuck's voice. "Let me speak to him. It's time I do."

 

**The End**


End file.
